Any opinions expressed or conclusions reached by the author of this article or the book referenced are their own and do not represent any official position or opinion of the Society of Actuaries or its members.
Abundance is the latest bestseller from Ezra Klein—well-known columnist and podcaster at the New York Times—co-authored with Derek Thompson. It has been on the New York Times list for months and was longlisted for the Financial Times & Schroders Business Book of the Year. Klein and Thompson have written what is essentially a manifesto against bureaucratic paralysis and a call to reframe how we think about growth.
At the heart of the book are two competing mindsets. A scarcity mindset assumes resources are limited, capacity is capped, and the role of institutions is to ration carefully, protect against risk, and divide a fixed pie. An abundance mindset, by contrast, assumes that capacity can be expanded, innovation can unlock new supply, and the pie itself can grow—if only we have the will to build. These are not absolute categories, but ends of a spectrum—most real-world situations blend elements of both scarcity and abundance. Scarcity is defensive; abundance is expansive and forward-looking.
Abundance to Scarcity through Political Lenses
The book got me thinking about two famous lines. The Statue of Liberty’s inscription—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—reflected confidence that newcomers would enlarge national capacity. Horace Greeley’s frontier call, “Go West, young man,” embodied the same conviction that opportunity grew with expansion.
Another idea the book prompted me to reflect on was how modern political speeches increasingly frame issues through the scarcity/abundance lens. In practice, most policies fall somewhere in the middle, though speeches often spotlight one side more than the other. Ezra Klein explains that a scarcity mindset emphasizes protecting what are seen as limited resources—such as education, healthcare, housing, and jobs—by restricting new entrants. An abundance mindset, by contrast, assumes those resources can grow and therefore does not impose the same constraints on newcomers. In my view, the contrast between these two worldviews often shapes the tone and direction of political speech, regardless of the specific topic.
History shows how quickly societies can swing from scarcity thinking to abundance thinking, depending on circumstances. In wartime, governments don’t ration timidly—they mobilize. Factories retool overnight, supply chains expand, and technology is deployed at speed. Scarcity logic gives way to abundance logic. In my view, this helps explain why defense budgets have historically remained generous across administrations. When the stakes are existential, abundance becomes the default.
Abundance Blocked by Over-Regulation
Klein and Thompson argue that over-regulation often blocks abundance and progress. They highlight cases where rules, instead of enabling growth, end up constraining it. For example, the U.S., despite its wealth, technical prowess and continental size, has no interstate high-speed rail, while China has built tens of thousands of kilometers of bullet trains. Similarly, amid a housing and homelessness crisis in the U.S., complex zoning laws, environmental reviews, and permitting delays make it extremely challenging to build affordable housing at scale.
The scarcity mindset in government isn’t inherent—the book argues that it is reinforced by professional monocultures. There are roughly 1.3 million active lawyers in the United States, which I estimate works out to about one lawyer for every 240–250 people. Although lawyers represent less than 1% of the population, they account for roughly one-third of House members and half of Senators. Since the late 1970s, nearly every Democratic presidential or vice-presidential nominee has also been a lawyer. In my view, this concentration encourages a kind of legalistic group-think—risk-averse, process-oriented, and predisposed toward endless review.
Flipping the Record: A Paradigm Shift from Scarcity to Abundance
By contrast, abundance logic has reshaped industries. Spotify took what was once rationed—one CD at a time—and transformed it into an infinite jukebox in your pocket. Airbnb reframed a finite hotel inventory by unlocking millions of homes, suddenly creating limitless supply. Once you read Abundance, you might start classifying industries this way: Those that are stuck in scarcity, and those that have broken out into abundance.
At this point, you may be asking what any of this has to do with life insurance and actuaries. For me, this is where the conversation becomes interesting. I want to apply the observations from Abundance to our industry, because I believe life insurance belongs squarely in this discussion. While abundance thinking in other sectors has expanded customer bases and transformed markets, I believe life insurance has tended to remain anchored in scarcity thinking—defining its pool too narrowly and limiting its own potential for growth.
The life-insurance protection gap is the difference between the coverage families need to maintain their standard of living if a breadwinner dies and the coverage they actually have. Underinsurance is a major societal problem for two reasons: It leaves households financially exposed precisely when they most need support, and it shifts a heavier long-term burden onto public safety nets and social systems. The scale of this unmet need is enormous—in the United States alone, the mortality coverage gap is estimated at US$25 trillion.[1]
A scarcity mindset in actuarial practice is not accidental; it reflects how actuaries are trained and the context in which they work. The profession prizes prudence, solvency, and guarding against downside risk. These are valuable safeguards, but they also encourage habits of caution that may result in a worldview that assumes the insurable pool is fixed. Pricing methods built on historical burning-cost experience and projection models focused on today’s insured lives rarely imagine a significantly larger base of policyholders. This orientation of looking backward in time tends to narrow the boundaries of our imagination and makes it difficult to recognize the upside that could come from expanding access to millions of currently uninsured households. I recall a presentation at a reinsurance company retreat on how high-fashion and luxury car brands set prices, and it was so un-actuarial it made my head spin—luxury brands often set prices not by cost, but by the story, status, and aspiration attached to the product.
Abundance Thinking in Insurance
Yet abundance is not alien to our profession. Even in the earliest days, when the first ships to the West Indies sought insurance in the mid-1600s, someone had the vision to recognize that a handful of voyages would soon multiply into a steady stream of trade. This visionary step matured into a market that transformed global commerce and reshaped economies.
It’s worth noting how the health insurance industry has already wrestled with the scarcity/abundance divide. In the U.S., two contrasting political philosophies landed on a similar instinct. The Affordable Care Act nationally, and earlier, health policy reforms under Governor Romney in Massachusetts, both leaned toward abundance by enlarging the pool, bringing in the previously uninsured, and stabilizing markets through expansion. Neither was perfect—costs remain high, complexity persists—and elements of scarcity remained, but both reflected an abundance mindset.
Today, cyber insurance is following a similar path: Underwriting risks that are only partially understood, diversifying across portfolios, and trusting adaptive models to expand capacity.
Klein and Thompson have shown how entire sectors can become trapped in rules and habits that block abundance and progress. Life insurance reflects the same pattern. Despite a vast protection gap, the industry’s focus on managing risk and maintaining sustainability may have sometimes led to conservative eligibility standards that may limit broader access.
Here are some brainstorming solutions to help shift more toward an abundance mindset within the life insurance industry:
- Expand underwriting acceptance: Move beyond static manuals and adopt dynamic, evidence-based rules that reflect medical advances (e.g., controlled diabetes, cancer remission).
- Inclusive product design: Develop simplified-issue and guaranteed-issue products that use tiered coverage levels rather than outright declines.
- Use alternative data for risk assessment: Leverage wearable tech, pharmacy data, dental records, and lifestyle analytics to refine risk pools, which could result in making more people insurable at attractive rates.
- Adopt parametric and event-trigger products: Simplify claims processes and reduce underwriting barriers by paying on objective triggers (e.g., hospitalization, diagnosis).
- Diversify distribution models: Complement the traditional agency force with digital-first channels and community-based approaches to reach younger and lower-income groups.
- Advocate for abundance-oriented regulation: Engage with regulators to allow sandbox pilots, provide flexible solvency treatment for inclusive products, and enable digital distribution models. Pair this with cross-sell opportunities through banking, retail, and utility ecosystems to bring previously uninsured groups into the risk pool.
- Reinvest in financial literacy and trust-building: Fund broad-based financial education campaigns that reframe life insurance as accessible protection for all, not an elite purchase.
Conclusion
Klein and Thompson’s Abundance reminds us that scarcity is a choice, not a law of nature. The Statue of Liberty and “Go West” once embodied confidence in growth. Politics and poor regulation often do the reverse, rationing opportunities and defending limits.
Scarcity and abundance are not absolutes, but choices along a continuum. By choosing abundance, we can help close potential protection gaps, expand access, and redefine our profession as one that grows opportunity. For actuaries, the real question is not whether abundance is possible, but whether we are willing to imagine it.
This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Neither the Society of Actuaries nor the respective authors’ employers make any endorsement, representation or guarantee with regard to any content, and disclaim any liability in connection with the use or misuse of any information provided herein. This article should not be construed as professional or financial advice. Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries or the respective authors’ employers.
Ronald Poon Affat, FSA, FIA, MAAA, CFA, HIBA, is an independent board director, cross-continental actuary, and senior consultant. Ronald can be contacted at rpoonaffat@gmail.com.
Endnote
[1] Deloitte Center for Financial Services. 2025 Global Insurance Outlook. Deloitte Insights, September 29, 2024. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/financial-services/financial-services-industry-outlooks/insurance-industry-outlook.html.