Insurance as a "product"...
Using the term "product" to describe the
services provided by insurance companies seems to me to be quite a
stretch. One of the definitions
found on the Internet for the word product
is "Something produced by human or mechanical
effort or by a natural process*" I find it difficult to
define a contract created as an agreement between a powerful
corporate entity and a essentially uniformed individual to be a
"product." It seems to be more like a certificate of
indenture, than any tangible product. Particularly since the
fundamental assumption of insurance is that you will never really use
it.
* Courtesy of dictionary.reference.com and The
American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition Copyright 2000 by Houghton Miffin Company.