podcast

youtube: https://youtu.be/8Bfkrbiazxw

episode page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/11907447

Why did I do this show?

Florida has passed legislation and I wanted an excuse to dig through why it’s so important for insurance!

What did I learn?

That some reinsurers still aren’t happy!

What was my favorite part?

Speculating on what the eventual political consequences to insurance

youtube: https://youtu.be/WT0iS-sDa54

episode page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/11848870

Do you think Florida is weird? Most everyone does. Why? Gary is the man to answer this question. Gary is Professor Emeritus of the University of South Florida and has dedicated his career to studying the social history of Florida.

Here is Gary on wikipedia
Here is Gary on Amazon

Quote of the show: “Do crazy people immigrate to Florida or do perfectly normal people come here, and then be a little goofy and go crazy.”

What is the most unusual social characteristic of Florida? 0:00
What are some of the most distinctive features of Florida? 9:37
Florida’s “Florida Man” reputation. 15:49
California and Florida are neck and neck in population density growth in last 100 years. 24:51
Florida is running out of options for reinsuring barrier islands. 35:55
What it costs to live on the coast in Florida. 40:18
How is Florida a Ponzi State? 42:28
What’s the real alternative? 46:55
What are the similarities and differences between Florida and other states in terms of immigration? 53:49
How the Cuban vote has been a solid republican vote since 1961

Why did I do this show?

Gary is ridiculously underrated. Florida is a massive deal and its reputation for weirdness screams out for explanation. There is an insurance question here of course but come on, why don’t more people know Gary Mormino!

What did I learn?

As I expected Florida can probably be explained using a kind of factor analysis of its sociological parts. It is old, its immigrant politics are relatively dominated by communist refugees so skews right, it is “California on the cheap”. We can dig into each of these things and understand that they are all perfectly normal but their combination yields a fascinating place.

What was my favorite part?

This section is sometimes hard for me to write but I’ve got an embarrassment of riches in this episode. The winner HAS to be Gary describing the giant senior community that launches presidential campaigns where everyone drives golf carts instead of cars.

youtube: https://youtu.be/Sjennrn5LNA

episode page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/11585772

More on Joe Edelman

Why did I do this show?

I am looking for a way that we might be able to design a new insurance system. By “insurance system” I mean a way for us to make decisions about what kinds of risks we want to face and what we want to ignore. The amount of information we need to process to make these decisions is too much for an individual to handle so we make them socially. Social decision making is another way of saying “politics” and “regulation”. Does Joe open the door to a better way of regulation?

What did I learn?

In preparing for this and in doing this interview I learned how incredibly powerful it is to have your values identified and named and discussed. There really is something to this!

What was my favorite part?

Hearing about what the most common values are in people. I had thought that there was a lot of similarity and I think that’s right. “contributing” “showing up”. Interesting!

episode link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/11547382

youtube: https://youtu.be/Cd9JpHsjDr8

Why did I do this show?

Insurance companies operate based on trust. Probably the single most important gatekeepers of trust of insurance companies are rating agencies. Some will find that surprising! Rating agencies are a dominant force in insurance especially in supremely dysfunctional markets like homeowners insurance in Florida where Joe’s company, Demotech, is the dominant rating agency. Florida is a mess and then that mess got hit with the largest hurricane in its long history of hurricanes!

What did I learn?

That litigation reform is very, very hard!

What was my favorite part?

I learn again and again, entrepreneurs are pretty similar everywhere, even those in the weird business of rating agencies!

Clips:

episode page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/11087306

youtube: https://youtu.be/aWS7tSIe68Q

This conversation gave me such a feeling of humility yet hope about our world. It’s an awful place sometimes but some people are truly awesome at making it better.

Jen Brady is the Executive Director of Oasis, a non-profit serving women and children in Paterson, NJ and this is her second appearance on the show. In the first show we talked about COVID and the poor. This time we’re digging right onto Oasis and its mission and how it’s doing.

Charity is incredibly similar to insurance. As I half joked once in comparing them: “One of them supplies resources to those in desperate need and hopefully enables them to pull themselves out of their difficult circumstances to lead a successful life. So does the other one.” Insurers could do well to learn from Jen. And she has a remarkable track record, doubling the size of Oasis during her tenure and initiating many fascinating experiments and new initiatives in Paterson, NJ. 

We discuss:
* How self-belief is the most important factor in women lifting themselves out of poverty
* How that feeling of self-belief is constructed, influenced and nurtured in and out of Oasis
* The difference between generational poverty and immigrant poverty
* What is the drop out rate (I was astonished) and how do they manage drop-outs
* Do the problems feel endless?
* What did they learn by extending Oasis into housing development?
* How to not create bureaucracy in solving problems
* How they handle the cultural complexity of women and children from 26 different countries (plus Paterson natives!)
* How the social consequences of COVID (lockdowns, etc) impacted poor families
* How much talent there is hidden in places like Paterson

Why did I do this show?

Jen Brady (https://oasisnj.org/) is a tremendously successful executive in an industry (non-profit) that I know virtually nothing about but which has a very many links to my insurance.

What did I learn?

A very many things. One that nearly everyone who enters these programs drops out. Working with that fact in a graceful way to bring people in and out is a cornerstone of succeeding at the very difficult work Oasis does.

What was my favorite part?

I was delighted to hear about all the experiments they’r running at Oasis and generally how similar the problems of delivering organizational impact (Learn as a team! Don’t create bureaucracy! Move fast! Focus on the customer!) are no matter what kind of organization you run.

Clips:

episode page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/10773529

youtube link: https://youtu.be/H-bcj1LJy80

Chris Blattman is an economist and political scientist and author of several books, most recently *Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace*.  

This is another installment in my investigation for how to pursue social change.  What I notice about insurance is that the institution is so deeply encoded in our society that we don’t even realize how important it is. So deeply encoded that we actually kind of hate it, yet it persists because of how important it is. 

What are other ways of pursuing beneficial social change? Persistent beneficial social change? Violent conflict is a pretty big, nasty problem. But what are its roots and what are its causes? What might need to change about our world to reduce it? What is the relationship between peripheral and central societies and how is that related to violence? 

All that plus tons on James C Scott and more!

Why did I do this show?

There are a lot of social problems in the world and Chris combines a track record of discovering ways to meaningfully and persistently change very poor societies on some of the most important dimensions. This is very important stuff!

What did I learn?

One of the great things about talking to Chris is a discrete separation of analyzing morality from violence. Sometimes we must sacrifice morals to eliminate violence. Historically, our societies have often had to choose between peace or justice.

What was my favorite part?

In our discussion for how to persistently encode social transformation Chris mentioned the congressional testimony of Fred (Mr.) Rogers. Holy cow.

Clips:

episode page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/10628363

youtube link: https://youtu.be/mr2jrM0fkt0

Why did I do this show?

Tyler is an intellectual hero of mine. He’s now a three-time guest! He’s pretty much guaranteed to teach you something every day.

What was my favorite part?

I went 0 for 2 on Straussian readings. Tyler isn’t disagreeing with me, he just thinks I’m being obvious. I shall work harder for the next one!

What did I learn?

The the most important academic result, the one that drives a lot of Tyler’s own work, is that the market test is the most important test of truth. It’s kind of the end of history for academics! At least for those that ignore markets of various kinds.

Clips