Truthcoin for Insurance with Private Data (auto, medical, etc)

[Globe99]

One application of Truthcoin prediction markets that has been proposed is for insurance for catastrophic (and public-verifiable) events like earthquakes. I have a question about the potential applicability of Truthcoin to forms of insurance that involve (a) personal information and (b) non- or semi-public information. The two basic examples for this might be auto and medical insurance. Both of these require access to information that isn't and probably shouldn't be completely public or well-known, e.g. your driving record and medical history.

Is there a way that PM's such as Truthcoin can provide this sort of insurance as a futures contract? I saw a mention in some Truthcoin documentation that it won't work very well for events that a small number of people can influence. Thus, the veracity of the fact "I have X disease" would be difficult to verify without a large number of observers, and nobody wants that....

So is there some "trick" here that I'm missing? I'd really like to think that there is a DAC or cryptocurrency-based solution for verifying personal data and personal events (and thus allowing for the "insurance DAC"), but so far I haven't seen it.

[zack]

I'd really like to think that there is a DAC or cryptocurrency-based solution for verifying personal data and personal events (and thus allowing for the "insurance DAC"), but so far I haven't seen it.

If you put yourself under a 24/7 webcam, and have all your vitals being live streamed to the internet, it should work.

It is possible to replace your doctor with a market.
You defined a function f which takes as input many numbers about your health: blood pressure, blood cell count, cholesterol, etc.
And outputs a healthy-ness number such that higher healthiness is always preferable.
You could put yourself under a 24/7 web surveillance, and ask the prediction market which medical treatment will maximize your healthiness function.
If you want the doctor to give you accurate medical advice, then you will have to reveal all your medical history to the world. It should be possible to reveal all the medical info without attaching your name.

The prediction market will give you better medical advice at a better price than any doctor.
You yourself can bet in these same markets, and create a financial instrument that works like life-insurance.

I imagine a future where there are hospitals without doctors. Every room streams all your information to the internet. The charge for staying at such a hospital would be far lower than a normal hospital.
In my future the doctors look a lot like traders of stocks today. They read medical info from patients, and make bets about which medical treatment is best. Each doctor could have thousands of patients. The doctors might not have finished high school. They might not speak English.

It is possible to create assassination markets to kill people who stay at the hospital.

[psztorc]

The design of Truthcoin is for a Branch's Decisions to have Outcomes which are easily-observed by the Branch's Voters. Throw in decentralized and pseudonymous owners, and it seems like your particular contract might be better off as a private business and not a blockchain.

This may interest you: http://hanson.gmu.edu/buyhealth.html

[Globe99]

I'd really like to think that there is a DAC or cryptocurrency-based solution for verifying personal data and personal events (and thus allowing for the "insurance DAC"), but so far I haven't seen it.

If you put yourself under a 24/7 webcam, and have all your vitals being live streamed to the internet, it should work.

It is possible to replace your doctor with a market.
You defined a function f which takes as input many numbers about your health: blood pressure, blood cell count, cholesterol, etc.
And outputs a healthy-ness number such that higher healthiness is always preferable.
You could put yourself under a 24/7 web surveillance, and ask the prediction market which medical treatment will maximize your healthiness function.
If you want the doctor to give you accurate medical advice, then you will have to reveal all your medical history to the world. It should be possible to reveal all the medical info without attaching your name.

The prediction market will give you better medical advice at a better price than any doctor.
You yourself can bet in these same markets, and create a financial instrument that works like life-insurance.

This is an interesting idea. You would have to have some kind of trusted hardware medical devices to monitor your vital stats so that you couldn't (say) fake a heart attack and collect the insurance money. However, I don't see this as a huge problem to overcome. This idea of a personal, public (or semi-public) health data feed isn't such a crazy concept, as today you have FitBits and all sorts of personal activity trackers that can post to Facebook or other social media. (See "quantified self")

Thus, your personal data feed would serve both to establish a medical (and activity, exercise etc) history as well as report medical problems, all assuming that the hardware can be trusted by the "insurers." In any case, the onus is on you to prove that your health is a good investment for others in the prediction market.

It is possible to create assassination markets to kill people who stay at the hospital.

Lost you here. Not down with this.

[psztorc]

It is possible to create assassination markets to kill people who stay at the hospital.

Lost you here. Not down with this.

You are in a way, if you want to set up a contract that pays X to Y if person Z dies. Hanson's article sketches out a theoretical solution to this state of affairs.