Insurance Era : Risk, Governance, and the Privatization of Security in Postwar America

Actuarial thinking is everywhere in contemporary America, an often unnoticed byproduct of the postwar insurance industry’s political and economic influence. Calculations of risk permeate our institutions, influencing how we understand and manage crime, education, medicine, finance, and other social issues. Caley Horan’s remarkable book charts the social and economic power of private insurers since 1945, arguing that these institutions’ actuarial practices played a crucial and unexplored role in insinuating the social, political, and economic frameworks of neoliberalism into everyday life. Analyzing insurance marketing, consumption, investment, and regulation, Horan asserts that postwar America’s obsession with safety and security fueled the exponential expansion of the insurance industry and the growing importance of risk management in other fields. Horan shows that the rise and dissemination of neoliberal values did not happen on its own: they were the result of a project to unsocialize risk, shrinking the state’s commitment to providing support, and heaping burdens upon the people often least capable of bearing them. __Insurance Era__ is a sharply researched and fiercely written account of how and why private insurance and its actuarial market logic came to be so deeply lodged in American visions of social welfare. Charts the social and cultural life of private insurance in postwar America, showing how insurance institutions and actuarial practices played crucial roles in bringing social, political, and economic neoliberalism into everyday life. Actuarial thinking is everywhere in contemporary America, an often unnoticed byproduct of the postwar insurance industry's political and economic influence. Calculations of risk permeate our institutions, influencing how we understand and manage crime, education, medicine, finance, and other social issues. Caley Horan's remarkable book charts the social and economic power of private insurers since 1945, arguing that these institutions' actuarial practices played a crucial and unexplored role in insinuating the social, political, and economic frameworks of neoliberalism into everyday life. Analyzing insurance marketing, consumption, investment, and regulation, Horan asserts that postwar America's obsession with safety and security fueled the exponential expansion of the insurance industry and the growing importance of risk management in other fields. Horan shows that the rise and dissemination of neoliberal values did not happen on its own: they were the result of a project to unsocialize risk, shrinking the state's commitment to providing support, and heaping burdens upon the people often least capable of bearing them. Insurance Era is a sharply researched and fiercely written account of how and why private insurance and its actuarial market logic came to be so deeply lodged in American visions of social welfare. "Caley Horan charts the social and cultural life of private insurance in the United States after 1945. Analyzing insurance marketing, consumption, investment, and regulation, Horan argues that insurance institutions and actuarial practices played crucial roles in introducing neoliberalism to American life. Today, actuarial thinking is everywhere--calculations of risk and chance influence how we understand and manage crime, education, medicine, and finance. Horan avers that midcentury America--obsessed with security, safety, and risk-fueled the exponential expansion of the insurance industry and the growing importance of risk management in countless fields. Horan moreover shows that insurance institutions have been central to establishing many of the social, political, and economic frameworks essential for neoliberalism. At its broadest, actuarial thinking, which presumes that all rational action is economic action, encourages individuals to conduct their lives in market terms, taking charge of their own risks and welfare. The rise and administration of neoliberal values did not just happen; it was the product of a project to unsocialize risk, reducing costs to the state and heaping burdens upon the people often least capable of bearing them. The reason "There Is No Alternative" to neoliberal logics is that all the alternatives get defined away by forces, like insurance companies, that profit handsomely from doing so"-- Provided by publisher Contents Introduction Part I. Selling “Self-Made” Security 1. Insurance Marketing in the Wake of the New Deal 2. “Facing the Future’s Risks”: Governing through Education and Public Service Part II. Investing in Privatization 3. “Public Enterprises in Private Hands”: Investing in Urban Renewal 4. “A Mighty Pump”: Financing Suburbanization Part III. Defending Discrimination 5. “Communities without Hope”: Urban Crisis and Insurance Redlining 6. The Unisex Insurance Debate and the Triumph of Actuarial Fairness Epilogue: Imagining Insurance Futures Acknowledgments Notes Index