Following recent comments by Allianz CEO Andreas Utermann calling for cryptocurrency to be outlawed, VanEck Head of Digital Assets Gabor Gurbacs has stated that the insurance industry is in greater need or comprehensive regulation than cryptocurrency. In a now-deleted post on his Twitter account, Gurbacs made the point that the behaviour of insurance companies toward investors and customers makes it hypocritical for them to pass judgement on cryptocurrency market participants.
Using an insurance company’s treatment of his mother’s claim following a serious car accident as a case in point, he noted that Allianz and other insurance companies are hardly in any position to profess some kind of moral superiority over crypto investors and businesses on the subject of regulatory oversight.
The tweet read:
“My mother almost died in a car accident a few years ago. All injuries theoretically covered in Allianz insurance policies. They didn’t pay when we most needed coverage that was paid for. Allianz should shut the f*** up on anything #crypto or #insurance!”
Gurbacs Takes Insurance Industry to Task
Earlier this week, comments by Utermann at a panel discussion in London made headlines around the world when he stated that the regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies should be a Chinese-style outright ban, as against the variety of regulatory frameworks being considered or implemented by regulators in most major economies around the world.
In his view, cryptocurrencies offer absolutely no value worth regulating and are notorious for wiping out people’s savings. As such according to him, they should be treated the same way as Ponzi schemes or money laundering networks. Expectedly, this view has not gone down well in crypto circles, sparking a groundswell of anger against what many cryptocurrency holders and investors see as a message of aggression from an attack dog working for a discredited financial system.
Writing on his Twitter thread, Gurbacs stated that rather than crypto, it is in fact insurers that need to be regulated more closely, due to misleading claims made to investors and sale of ill-suited product to clients.
In his words:
“Insurance companies regularly mislead investors, their disclosure systems are questionable and leave clients behind when they most needed. Insurance companies need more regulation, not crypto…The state by state regulation of insurance companies, and inconsistencies across the board, make it practically impossibly for policy buyers to understand what they are buying. Buying insurance is like intending to buy bread but getting horse-sh*t instead.”
Gurbacs has been in the news for an altogether different reason recently, following his pronouncement that VanEck is “cautiously optimistic” of being successful in its application to the SEC for a bitcoin ETF, even as the SEC issued a third and final three-month extension to enable it to come to a decision.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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