Let it Burn or Not? Fulton Fire Department Follow-up: Updated with Mangu-Ward Video!

Reason discusses Iain Murray's Washington Examiner article on insurance companies. 

For some counter-perspective, here is Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writing in the Washington Examiner:

Histories of firefighting in both America and England (where the practice of insurance companies fighting fires began) show that [letting unisured houses burn] never happened. Indeed, the reason insurance companies began to get out of the fire fighting business and passed the hot potato to municipalities was precisely because of the free rider problem – their fire brigades were routinely putting out fires in buildings that held no policy with the company….

It is hard to see a fire brigade employed by a private insurance company simply sitting by and letting a house burn to the ground for the sake of an unpaid $75 fee. If it had, the company would have been accused of greed. What other word should we use to describe the motivation of a municipality in such circumstances?

Read the full article at Reason.