The insurance companies are playing a form of iterated prisoner’s dilemma against each other. If one company made itself highly transparent, it would gain business at the expense of all the opaque companies; but the opaque companies would follow suit, leading to a new equilibrium in which the industry as a whole made less money, but apportioned in the same way. Additionally, disclosing the contents of their price-setting black boxes would make it easier for new companies to construct similar boxes, and become competition.
If one company made itself highly transparent, it would gain business at the expense of all the opaque companies
This is a standard way for a (new) wireless carrier to try to set itself apart from the incumbent confusopolies. Of course, once entrenched, they stop defecting.
The insurance companies are playing a form of iterated prisoner’s dilemma against each other. If one company made itself highly transparent, it would gain business at the expense of all the opaque companies; but the opaque companies would follow suit, leading to a new equilibrium in which the industry as a whole made less money, but apportioned in the same way. Additionally, disclosing the contents of their price-setting black boxes would make it easier for new companies to construct similar boxes, and become competition.
This is a standard way for a (new) wireless carrier to try to set itself apart from the incumbent confusopolies. Of course, once entrenched, they stop defecting.