We Solved Insurance in 1752 and Then Forgot

Benjamin Franklin co-founded the Philadelphia Contributionship in 1752 as a policyholder-owned mutual insurer, a model that dominated U.S. insurance for centuries with aligned incentives between owners and claimants. Starting in the 1980s, a wave of demutualizations converted mutuals into shareholder-owned stock corporations, creating structural incentives to deny claims and maximize premiums at policyholders' expense.