Economizing insurance solidarity - The practices of insurance industry in Finland

During the past two centuries, insurance technology has increasingly contributed to the transformation of traditional forms of self-help and joint responsibility into more standardized and calculable forms of risk sharing. In doing so, insurance has acted as a major tool for economizing responsibility and solidarity. At the same time, there have been various efforts to ‘socialize’ the economy of insurance. This is obvious in the case of statutory social insurance, where redistribution of income and equalization of risks have been focal elements. However, to some extent, this kind of 'socialization' or 'solidarization' of insurance economy has been an essential feature in commercial private insurance as well.

This paper examines the management of private insurance economy and the ambivalence between ‘social’ and ‘commercial’ dimensions of insurance. The paper analyzes the issue by exploring five different techno-institutional practices of insurance. These are, first, pricing of the coverage (equal distribution of risks vs. risk classification), secondly, investment practices (social investment policy vs. market-based investment policy), thirdly, the form of the product (risk insurance vs. savings insurance), fourthly, the purpose of the organization (insurance company vs. bank), and finally the company form (mutual company vs. stock corporation). The main question of the paper is: in what ways is insurance solidarity enacted and economized within insurance industry? The paper studies the question by exploring the changing insurantial imaginaries and practices in Finland from 1940s until 2000s. The study is based on the analysis of published talks, interviews and writings of the ‘insiders’ in the field, i.e. executives and officials of private insurance companies, their interest groups and supervisory authorities. The paper aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the entanglement of economic, political and scientific rationalities in the management of insurance economy.