The Mid-Atlantic Insurance Underwriters Conference has a reliable history of being a very plain, straightforward affair. Mostly it is a convenient backdrop for an esteemed functionary of the insurance community to catch up with their counterparts within companies of a particular region. It is a weekend of talking shop, eating passable cuisine, and ending with a toast for a more stable and less liable world, all within the sacred confines of the all-purpose room at the Ramada Inn off Route 10. It’s not expected that anyone make bold innovative proposals or divine the next frontier in insurance coverage.
The atmosphere could not have been more different at the 2018 conference held at the Holiday Inn in or around Atlantic City. Very little seemed out of place for much of that weekend. There was a low-tier comedian in a boxy, tieless suit and outdated jogging sneakers who’d mastered every inside joke the organizers fed him. Then there was the motivational speaker who reiterated those inside jokes through a more positively reinforcing prism. (I was assured by the coworker who was there that the former was adequately riotous and the latter adequately inspiring.) Then some more seminars, then some karaoke with delectable finger foods, etc., etc., amen.
The real turn came, apparently, during the main cocktail hour and banquet on Saturday night. The master of ceremonies, associate vice president of insurance at CINCO Simon Hartman, announced a surprise speaker. Neither he nor the speaker specifically identified himself beyond his status as a “high-ranking” official at Old Glory Mutual. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, ladies and gentlemen,” he is reported as saying, “the insurance world is in danger of free fall. We have lost all sense of purpose and respect. We seem driven only by panic and response to immediate problems. Is that why we got into this business?” “NO,” the audience was reported to have responded. “That’s what I thought. So you’ll agree that we need a dymanic [sic] new path to revitalize our industry and to restore it to its rightful place in America’s productive life.” “YES,” the audience allegedly cried. “Great! Without further ado, I introduce Steve insurance.”
Over plates of fish or chicken, I’m assured that the audience was rapt by this man’s presentation. It turns out that the insurance market has deprived itself of a significant source of business: people named Steve. It seemed to have had an oracular, free jazz quality. He did not go into any exact detail as to how he came to this conclusion, for instance. And it remains unclear to most who’d heard it or been told about it after the fact whether people named Steve were objects to be insured, to be insured against, or potential liabilities to be factored into existing policies. In short, he left it to us, the insurance community of the mid-Atlantic United States, to determine the proper course, a responsibility that was accepted with considerable vigor and enthusiasm.
It then fell more specifically upon us, the actuaries, to assess the potential of this avant-garde of insurance policy. It did not take long for the mid-Atlantic insurance community to marshal our resources and acquire the necessary data. This required going out into the wider world and finding people named Steve for whom we could examine quantitatively and qualitatively.
We actuaries are not known for, nor are we encouraged to have, strong feelings, but I would be remiss to deny that the Steve insurance project was one of the more interesting, if not fulfilling, endeavors of my career.
Case no. 01
The first Steve1 was one of exemplary character and comportment. He was a public school administrator with two college-aged children. He described himself as a “lapsed but respectful” Rotarian, who preferred lacrosse to football and plausibly claimed to know the difference between William Gass and Willian Gaddis, though we didn’t ask him to make that distinction. He described his taste in pornography as “normal.” After the questionnaire, we offered him coffee and what we determined was a conservative dose of bath salts. From that moment his demeanor changed markedly. He stopped talking with us, preferring instead to bang his head against the two-way mirror at a rhythmic interval.
Case no. 02
This Steve was very much the opposite of the first. He had no educational credentials beyond the “school of hard knocks [holds up fists],” his career was listed as “freelance,” he owes alimony to “two-going-on-three ” former spouses “[double middle-finger],” and generally has poor relations with his immediate and possibly extended community “[under-surface crotch adjustment].” He claimed to have no interest in pornography and said that much of his leisure time was derived from old episodes of The Dating Game and Rhoda, which he viewed through his own extensive library of VHS recordings “[lascivious lip-smack].” We administered the same dosage of bath salts to Steve on the speculation that it would have the opposite effect of the previous Steve. This proved incorrect gauging by the further damage to the two-way mirror, provided this time by the head of one of our Unpaid Associates. “[Fun little shimmy].”
Case no. 03
This Steve was neither notably bad nor notably good. He was a median Steve. His presentation was a strange combination of casual and careful. If he had a flaw, it was presented in a very expectant and ideal way, such as a near-perfectly curved, almost moon-shaped, scar on his right cheek that under select lighting conditions could be mistaken for a tattoo. His hair was outgrown, but held in an upward position to resemble a sort of bun, which made some of us hungry. He wore sleekly framed glasses that showed no immediate evidence of having lenses. He listed his career as “session bassist” but was dressed in a shirt, tie, and a name tag for CitiBank. He did not have car insurance but had a policy for his longboard that somehow had a $450 monthly premium. Beyond this we don’t really know much about median Steve. He tended to answer any of our questions with “Okay, sweet” while otherwise offering comments, always unsolicited, about the “dimensions” of the “vibe” without pinpointing the source of the vibe. In the end he offered us some of his own supply of bath salts with the assurances that they were “gnar gnar.” We appreciated the gesture, but demurred. We assessed median Steve’s demeanor as “relaxed,” which might constitute a kind of euphemism, but ethical considerations prevent me from either confirming or denying that this is so.
Case no. 04
For the sake of having a control case, we decided we needed to examine a compulsory Steve. This subject was brought to us by Chris, a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. There was some confusion in the arrangement, it seems, as this Steve arrived to our facility post-mortem. As a result, no useable data could be acquired.
Case no. 05
This subject proved to be the most contentious of the Steves. He introduced himself to us as a sociologist from an unnamed but assuredly “prominent and prestigious” university. From the get-go things did not go as usual. Instead of answering our questions he merely repeated them with different emphasis. For instance, when we asked him what he most valued in a mating partner he said, “What do you most value in a mating partner?” It was soon apparent that he thought he was here to examine us. I clarified the matter in firm but respectful terms, to which he snickered a little and took notes. Everything that happened thereafter I very much regret. “Listen, Steve,” I said, “I do not appreciate being made a guinea pig for your ‘social science.’ And, quite frankly, Steve, I look upon your profession with pity. What are sociologists but armchair actuaries?” Steve removed his very real glasses. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he began. “But using your framing device, it can just as easily be argued that actuaries are economists who have never touched a woman.” This was too far, I thought. I could think of no other response than to call in Estelle, a female Unpaid Associate, and stand her next to me where I held my index finger to her shoulder with as respectful a delicacy as I could manage. “Fuck you, Steve,” I added. After the tension had subsided, I offered to tender Estelle’s resignation, which Professor Steve accepted.
Case no. 06
Of this Steve not much can be said. It’s very possible that we have even less useable data than we do from the post-mortem Steve. We don’t know his career, whether he is married or single or with a miscellaneous partner(s). Of his leisure activities, his fears and desires, his greater worldview, or where he lives, we have nothing. Steve spent most of his session in tears—sobbing profusely, to be more precise. His voice emitted no clear language beyond wails and warbles, like those heard on an old tape recording. Occasionally he did stop, but not to catch his breath or wipe his nose. He was just still, staring blankly for five or six seconds before resuming as normal. This went on for up to 90 minutes before I was able to interject. “Just to be clear, Steve, this is not a therapeutic inquiry.” To which he stopped sobbing and replied, “Who is Steve?” He was sobbing again once we escorted him off the premises to the point where his sobbing was no longer our technical, legal, or moral responsibility. His file his mostly blank, but under pornography habits we came to the consensus that it was “likely and indeterminate.”
Conclusion
If insurance is guilty of any crime, it is in caring too much. Insurance has a way of holding you a little too tightly and for a longer duration than may seem acceptable. But who would deny that insurance does so with a pure heart? Insurance feels deeply and poignantly for people who live daily under Steve-adjacent conditions, and who have no protection from Steve-born outcomes. Insurance regrets in the cockles of its collective heart that the liabilities made possible by any given Steve could be numberless, their consequences far-reaching. But insurance may justly be accused of an additional, sort of contradictory crime: excessive caution. Insurance cannot just now take the necessary measures to offer comprehensive or affordable policies for Steve damages. Trust us that insurance is aware that more Steves than this slim selection are out there incurring risks of cosmic scope. Insurance is pained by this in waking and dreaming hours.
The names of the case subjects have been changed to protect their privacy.