Recently, we reported on a unique niche marketing effort aimed at the gay demographic. And, of course, other such campaigns have targeted other buyer groups. It's how businesses grow.
World Net Daily reports that disgraced insurance giant AIG is developing (has developed?) a sharia-compliant homeowners insurance policy.
[ed: "sharia" is traditional Islamic law]
These particular plans are based on the Islamic concept of "Takaful," which apparently means "mutual assistance." We've seen similar "plans" in the health area, where folks join a group and are assessed when a member has a claim. Another aspect is that the carrier will only invest in companies or funds which are "sharia-friendly:" like "green" mutual funds (which invest only in companies buying into the global warming scenario), "sharia friendly" companies would be those that (for example) don't market pork products, or tobacco and the like.
On its face, this seems pretty innocuous: a market with a need (Muslims who own homes) and a solution (niche-friendly insurance). Assuming that the plans are adequately reserved and appropriately underwritten, where's the harm?
At least one organization, Family Security Matters is concerned that such a scheme opens the door to sharia-based law here, supplanting our own legal system. Since we taxpayers now own AIG, the argument seems to be, we have a right and obligation to see that this doesn't happen. They're concerned that we now own "part of [a] company with a business that promotes an Islamic supremacist ideology that is against equality, against liberty, and in support of discrimination."
I'm not sure I see that.
According to the carrier's site, the company sees its products as "an investment in the future of socially responsible insurance." Assuming that the profits flow back to the stakeholders (that would primarily be thee and me), I'm not sure I see a problem.
There are those who will object that the carrier will market only to Moslems, and that this is blatantly discriminatory.
D'uh!
Insurance is all about discrimination: we discriminate against speeders, and people with cancer, and teenagers...the list is pretty long. USAA sells only to folks associated with the military, Lutheran Brotherhood to their co-religionists, and so on. This seems to me to be no different.
If it turns out that this new carrier is, indeed, funneling its profits to terror groups, then of course the plug will need to be pulled, and fast. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that, merely speculation. Still, it seems prudent to keep a watch on this, to make sure that it is simply another niche marketing scheme, and nothing more sinister.
We'll keep you posted with any new developments.
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