>fundamentally it's leveraging the wealth of a few people so they can extract some wealth from many more
The insurance company isn't paying you out of the coffers of their wealthy owners. They're paying you out of the coffers from you and all your fellow insurance buyers' premiums. The primary transfering of money is from the little guy--- to the little guy. Any massive profits come from skimming a tiny bit of that at a very large scale. And competition pretty much dictates that that won't be predatory.
The insurance company isn't paying you out of the coffers of their wealthy owners. They're paying you out of the coffers from you and all your fellow insurance buyers' premiums. The primary transfering of money is from the little guy--- to the little guy. Any massive profits come from skimming a tiny bit of that at a very large scale. And competition pretty much dictates that that won't be predatory.