Comment by alexriddle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alexriddle | Hacker News Reader

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Lots of insurance covers these types of situation which are the result of careless acts...

Don't take the right safety precautions and burn down a customers house - liability insurance

Click on a link in a phishing email and open up your network to a ransomware attack - cyber insurance

Forget to lock your door and get burgled - property insurance

Write buggy software which leads to a hospital having to suspend operations - PI (or E&O) insurance

Fail to adequately adhere to regulatory obligations and get sued - D&O insurance

Obviously there will be various conditions etc which apply but I've been in Insurance a long time and cover for carelessness and stupidity is one of the things which keeps the industry going. I've dealt directly with (paid) claims for all of the above situations.

It doesn't absolve responsibility though, it just protects against the financial loss. I suspect if you leave a child alone with an AI and the house burns down that's going to be the least of your problems.

> Forget to lock your door and get burgled - property insurance

I’m pretty sure this will be the same for the other insurance you mentioned but for property insurance if you left your front door open you will have a hard time getting the insurance to actually pay out your claim. At least here they require a burglar alarm and they require it to be armed when nobody is on site or they will absolutely decline the claim.

Insurance insures against risk, but there’s a threshold to that and if you prove to be above it they will decline your claim or void your insurance in totality.

In the UK where I am, most standard (not budget) property policies would cover theft from an unlocked entry point.

Two main exceptions:

1 - if you are letting the property to someone else, e.g a lodger or have paying guests staying with you then this is typically excluded.

2 - if you have had previous theft claims, live in a high crime area, or you have a particularly high risk (e.g lots of valuables), the Insurer will add an endorsement that you need a minimum standard of locks and have them engaged when the property is unoccupied.

Outside of those, if you accidentally leave a door unlocked, your claim will likely be paid. The situation obviously may be different in other countries. I worked for a property insurer and saw hundreds of these claims (entry via an unlocked entry point) paid during my time there - I also saw many declined because of the above.

I suspect that over time the number of policies in the 'budget' category will continue to increase as price continues to trump everything else for most people]

edit: it is the same for the other lines I mentioned as well -e.g a cyber policy I saw recently has no conditions relating to use of MFA. It will have been factored in when writing the risk (they will have said they use it) and if it turned out it was a lie then there would be an issue with cover but if it was just a case of an admin forgetting to include an OU in the MFA group policy the claim would almost certainly be covered. Policies aimed at the SME space are much more likely to have specific conditions though.

> In the UK where I am, most standard (not budget) property policies would cover theft from an unlocked entry point.

How is this supposed to be assessed? You can demonstrate that a door was locked, if some kind of obvious measure was taken to circumvent it (destroying the lock, destroying the door, destroying the window...), but you can't demonstrate that it was unlocked. Burglars aren't limited to destroying things to bypass locks. One obvious approach is to pick them.

Most of the time we knew because people are generally honest and tell the truth. A few times where we had concerns we'd apply for a police report - even if someone will lie to their insurer, they rarely lie to the police in the heat of the moment when reporting the crime.

All that said, I can't recall many instances where the theft wasn't either breaking and entering, or entry through an open access point. As easy as lock picking might be, it's not a common burglary technique.

> At least here they require a burglar alarm

Is that commercial or residential?

I've never seen a residential insurance that requires an alarm system, let alone a monitored system. Though many carriers will offer a discount for having this.

This sounds like a racket for residential properties. Alarms do nothing to prevent burglary. Where this is a requirement, I'm sure the insurance company gets kick backs from companies that make or install them. Or it's an easy out, designed to make it as hard as possible for people to get any value from their insurance...

Alarms usually don't prevent burglaries, but they often reduce the amount of theft, as the burglars take what they can do in one trip and leave, rather than comprehensively emptying the building/unit.

I have no idea who is underwriting your policies but this is absolutely not true with any carrier in the US that I've ever seen. Insurance pretty regularly covers being a dumbass.

> At least here they require a burglar alarm and they require it to be armed when nobody is on site or they will absolutely decline the claim.

Where is here? I'm not aware of that being common anyplace in the US. I'm guessing you're in some country where crime is significantly higher than in the US.

There is no insurance that will insure you against your own gross negligence.

Insurance will only pay out if you can show that you have done everything a reasonable person would be expected to do to avoid the loss/damage.

> Don't take the right safety precautions and burn down a customers house - liability insurance

You mean someone burnt a customers house down /because of something like an electrical or equipment malfunction that they could not have reasonably foreseen or prevented/, right?

> Forget to lock your door and get burgled - property insurance

That seems unlikely. Compare this: https://moneysmart.gov.au/home-insurance/contents-insurance

> It's worth checking what isn't included. For example, damage caused by floods, intentional or criminal damage, or theft if you leave windows or doors unlocked.

Happy to be shown that I'm wrong but please do not give people the impression that liability insurance or property insurance will absolve them of losses no questions asked.

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