What type of insurance would protect you against the Amazon 1p bug?
I believe the appropriate recourse in this scenario is to bring a court case for breach of contract.   The 1p repricing issue has been admitted as an error out of scope of the purpose of the software.
"i dont know how they would buy *term* policies though, i suppose there is an actuarial value to the policy (ie. you might die during the policy term).  A lot of these polices are ""10 year term"" or something like that, so the actuarial value might be significant. (a lot of people get these who cant get whole life or cant afford to get it, with the health problems they now have).  Something tells me these transactions are not very advantageous to the insured (especially since i've seen them heavily advertised on channels my mom tends to watch)" "I am leaning more towards the belief that Amazon registered for the patent to keep other competitors from using such a system. I mean, the article even states: ""The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos.""   You'd have to be an imbecile to allow a newspaper organization that you own to post an article that is defaming your latest patent. As sick of a human being Jeff may be, he's a billionaire for one reason: brilliance. He intended to have this information released to competitors.   Nonetheless, this is a very ominous and scary technological innovation. The rapid, unrestricted pace of technology is beginning to frighten me." "First off, the jargon you are looking for is a hedge. A hedge is ""an investment position intended to offset potential losses/gains that may be incurred by a companion investment"" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_(finance)) The other answers which point out that put options are frequently used as a hedge are correct. However there are other hedging instruments used by financial professionals to mitigate risk.  For example, suppose you would really prefer that Foo Corporation not go bankrupt -- perhaps because they own you money (because you're a bondholder) or perhaps because you own them (because you're a stockholder), or maybe you have some other reason for wanting Foo Corp to do well. To mitigate the risk of loss due to bankruptcy of Foo Corp you can buy a Credit Default Swap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap). A CDS is essentially a bet that pays off if Foo Corp goes bankrupt, just as insurance on your house is a bet that pays off if your house burns down.   Finally, don't ever forget that all insurance is not just a bet that the bad thing you're insuring against is going to happen, it is also a bet that the insurer is going to pay you if that happens.  If the insurer goes bankrupt at the same time as the thing you are insuring goes bad, you're potentially in big trouble." That's not true - insurance companies can manage that risk and look to Re-insure that risk with very large pools of risk capital through reinsurance.   Government agencies traditionally have not looked to buy insurance but are now starting to insure such catastrophic risks.  I believe the NFIP has some sort of excess risk cover such that if losses are greater than $500 million, then it triggers a payout from large private insurers. "SIPC is a corporation - a legal entity separate from its owners. In the case of SIPC, it is funded through the fees paid by its members. All the US brokers are required to be members and to contribute to SIPC funds. Can it go bankrupt? Of course. Any legal entity can go bankrupt. A person can go bankrupt. A country can go bankrupt. And so can anything in between. However, looking at the history of things, there are certain assumptions that can be made. These are mere guesses, as there's no law about any of these things (to the best of my knowledge), but seeing how things were - we can try and guess that they will also be like this in the future. I would guess, that in case of a problem for the SIPC to meet its obligation, any of the following would happen (or combinations): Too big to fail - large insurance companies had been bailed out before by the governments since it was considered that their failure would be more destructive to the economy than the bailout. AIG as an example in the US. SIPC is in essence is an insurance company. So is Lloyd's of London. Breach of trust of the individual investors that can lead to a significant market crash. That's what happened in the US to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They're now ""officially"" backed by the US government. If SIPC is incapable of meeting its obligation, I would definitely expect the US government to step in, even though there's no such obligation. Raising funds through charging other members. If the actuary calculations were incorrect, the insurance companies adjust them and raise premiums. That is what should happen in this case as well. While may not necessarily solve a cashflow issue, in the long term it will allow SIPC to balance, so that bridge loans (from the US government/Feds/public bonds) could be used in between. Not meeting obligations, i.e.: bankruptcy. That is an option, and insurance companies have gone bankrupt before. Not unheard of, but from the past experience - again, I'd expect the US government to step in. In general, I don't see any significant difference between SIPC in the US and a ""generic"" insurance coverage elsewhere. Except that in the US SIPC is mandatory, well regulated, and the coverage is uniform across brokerages, which is a benefit to the consumer." All lenders make money from loans, despite the fact that there will be some defaults, they just have to make enough money from those that don't default to offset the losses from those that do, so that their over all profit is good enough to be justified, so there's no reason the p2p lending companies can't protect your loan. If you remove the risk of losing your investment you can expect your return to be reduced though, as they have to take more profit away from you in order to fund the pool used to pay out when there is a default. This doesn't necessarily mean your money is completely safe though, if the p2p lender itself went bust you would probably still lose your money, unless it was appropriately insured. I'm not sure liquidity is really the right word really, liquidity is about encashment without serious penalty. If you can transfer the debt to someone else at any time then liquidity is good, but if you don't really have that option (as most lenders don't) then your investment amount (whatever isn't paid back yet) is completely illiquid still, just for a shorter time. I don't see how the term is important myself, there are many investments that have differing maturity time scales, and you just have to pick one that has a suitable time scale, return and risk for you. 1% charge or not, there is still an ultimate net return on investment, secondary market or not. Virtually any investment has costs of some sort, you just have to take them into account and make sure you don't get fooled into thinking the ROI is better than it seems because of the way they've packaged and presented it. In general, damage caused intentionally as well as contractual liability are not covered under liability insurance policies.   Direct quote from your source... Use some logic.  How can a company be profitable insuring stupidity?  Show me an example where gross negligence was covered by an insurance company and billions paid out.   that's all I ask.... To make matters worse, many, perhaps most, of the common POS systems seem to be based on Windows XP and are running AV, neither of which have ever been updated. Merchants have no idea how much they're at risk. Fortunately, there are non-Windows POS systems, and POS that will run on newer versions of Windows. But merchants have to demand those. "Just coughed out my morning coffee on this one. I bet even Bezos leaves disabled the ""buy without confirmation"" option in his Alexa config. That shit could be potentially dangerous.  ...then again, dude is a billionaire. Maybe he doesn't care if Alexa accidently orders him a $20,000 sofa when he was just looking to buy more cereal." I'll give it a shot, even though you don't seem to be responding to my comment. SIPC insures against fraud or abuse of its members. If you purchased a stock through a SIPC member broker and it was held in trust by a SIPC member, you're covered by its protection. Where you purchased the stock - doesn't matter. There are however things SIPC doesn't cover. That said, SIPC members are SEC-registred brokers, i.e.: brokers operating in the USA. If you're buying on the UK stock exchange - you need to check that you're still operating through a US SIPC member. As I mentioned in the comment - the specific company that you mentioned has different entities for the US operations and the UK operations. Buying through them on LSE is likely to bind you with their UK entity that is not SIPC member. You'll have to check that directly with them. It tells you more about some of the convoluted rules put in place by FDA and ither regulatory agencies. It's next to impossible to introduce a true generic competitor. Really not a issue with the insurer as they must cover stuff only approved via the Fed agencies. "My thought is it is a ""safe bet"" as far as stocks go. Amazon is going to be around for a long time and is very innovative. I am willing to bet most people purchase the stock on that fact alone. Not its P/E and ROE." The article mentions it briefly, but this is likely a defensive patent. So much of Amazon's business comes from cross-checking or reading reviews in retail stores. I bet they just want to make sure people can still do that. "If your meaning of ""asset protection"" is buying gold and canned food in the name of a Nevada LLC because some radio guy said so, bad idea. For a person, if you have assets, buy appropriate liability limits with your homeowner/renter insurance policy or purchase an ""umbrella"" liability policy. This type of insurance is cheap. If you don't have assets, it may not be worth the cost of insuring yourself beyond the default limits on your renter's or homeowner's policy. If you have a business, you need to talk to your insurance agent about what coverage is appropriate for the business as a whole vs. you personally. You also need to talk to your attorney about how to conduct yourself so that your business interests are separated from your personal interests." "I decline politely.   The cost of the insurance policy has two components: The actual cost of a likely repair + profit. If I set aside the cost of a likely repair myself, then I get to keep the profit.   If the item doesn't break, I get to keep the ""repair"" money too :)"