Chapter 2931: Laboratory Accident Insurance and Airship Freight Insurance

In Xia Duo's view, insurance is a more stable Order Cornerstone than Mingshui New Currency; from the classical era to the modern day, the presence of insurance can be seen everywhere.

Not to mention Earth, the crew annuity of the Seventon Boatman Guild is a typical form of insurance: crew members pay a certain premium monthly, and once an accident occurs, their families can receive compensation totaling two to three times the total premiums paid.

Besides the crew, ships and cargo also have similar insurance schemes, mostly existing in the form of guild public accumulation funds; almost all chambers of commerce involved in maritime business participate in this to share risks.

The suggestion Xia Duo is giving Zhenna now is to establish a more professional, more comprehensive, and broader-reaching insurance system to provide services to more people.

……

A moment later, Lajieer sent a message saying that representatives from Vidas Workshop and the Mina Family had arrived and were waiting in the next room. Seeing that Zhenna was still deep in thought, and because he was unsure of the extent of her contemplation, Xia Duo reminded her again:

"President Zhenna, if the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce offers insurance services, then I will certainly take out a policy for every independent Laboratory in the Tower of Time; otherwise, a single laboratory accident could lead to a group of people going bankrupt."

"And then there are the Airships flying in the sky every day; equipment failure, attacks by flying beasts, or even human sabotage could all lead to an Airship crash. If there were insurance, perhaps there would be more Airships flying over Netheril in the future, and commerce would be more prosperous."

From Seventon to Daxia Territory, if one takes the traditional water transport route, at least a month is wasted on the road.

The reason is that although the two places are connected by waterways, the current is sometimes against and sometimes with the flow, and coupled with the winding river, it is impossible for ships to travel at full speed on the water.

The time taken from Seventon to Daxia Territory is even longer than going to the more distant Asikeer.

But Airships are different; flying in the sky, as long as they fly high enough, it takes at most one or two days to fly from Daxia Territory to Seventon. Even with low-altitude flight, considering the unpredictable wind direction or interference from flying beasts along the way, it would not exceed five days.

This is a time difference of at least six times.

The biggest problem currently affecting the popularization of Airships is the high manufacturing cost (the air bag and the Endless Gas Bottle); once an accident occurs, an ordinary Mage generally cannot recover the losses.

Therefore, although many people are very optimistic about this mode of transport, considering the high upfront investment costs, most are still in a wait-and-see state.

As a partner of the Tower of Time, the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce naturally obtained the Airship technology license (the Tower of Time and Leisen Territory share the patent) at the first opportunity and purchased several finished Airships from Leisen Territory.

However, the actual usage scenarios are not many; general supplies can go through traditional transport channels, while valuable items can go through a Portal or Teleportation Array, or even be transported by a High Mage in person.

This makes the Airship seem somewhat redundant, and according to what Xia Duo knows, the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce had an Airship crash while flying the 【Kangqi Plain-Seventon】 route.

But if there were insurance, although the unit price of freight and the cost of the Airship might increase a little, from a long-term perspective, this part of the cost could be diluted.

But the convenience brought by Airship transport will change the current commercial form of Netheril; at that time, ground transport might be completely eliminated, or only used for short-distance transport.

The two insurance application scenarios Xia Duo proposed were examples based on the past experience of the Tower of Time. Although Zhenna does not manage a Mage Tower organization, as a Great Arcanist, how could she have never encountered a laboratory?

Moreover, Xia Duo believes that Zhenna must have encountered laboratory accidents, the kind that exceed the laboratory's own Protection limits; such an accident, occurring once, is equivalent to rebuilding a new Laboratory.

As someone from Earth, Xia Duo is very attentive to laboratory risk management. After he took over the Tower of Time, ordinary laboratories have almost never had major accidents, but for an Arcanist's Advanced Laboratory, there is no way around it.

It is basically destroyed once used, and then rebuilt once; this is also the main reason why most Arcanists come from Mage Tower organizations.

"Rogue" Mages simply cannot find a suitable Advanced Laboratory and can only beg the Seven Towers or join the Arcane Union, a relatively loose mass organization, to have a chance to advance as an Arcanist.

In fact, Mages who truly have the ideal of becoming an Advanced Arcanist have already found ways to join a Mage Tower organization that possesses an Advanced Laboratory before advancing.

Of course, for something like an Advanced Laboratory that is almost destroyed after one use, even if someone is willing to underwrite it, the premium would certainly be equivalent to the reconstruction cost, or even higher.

But ordinary laboratories do not have accidents often, so to avoid bankruptcy overnight, buying insurance is very appropriate.

As for Airship insurance, or rather Airship freight insurance, the Tower of Time has a total of two Airships, one large and one small; the small one is a patrol vehicle for the Spellbreaker Guard, while the large one is mostly used as a training Airship and has not been put into commercial use.

But the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce has an Airship fleet, and their understanding of the pain points of Airships is likely more profound than Xia Duo's.

Xia Duo does not care about the cost of Airships; in fact, he has already mastered the key technology to reduce costs—for the air bag, there is mass-produced Magic Glue material, which is lighter and more durable; for the Endless Gas Bottle, he also has a team for mass-producing Magic Artifacts, plus the Wind Elemental Plane that can provide light gas.

It is very difficult for others to solve these two points, especially the Endless Gas Bottle; currently, only Kelifu has a Wind Elemental Plane that can produce light gas, which is a proper bottleneck technology, and it can only be purchased at a high price.

One could also try elemental conversion, but without knowing the elemental composition of the light gas, there is no way to do it.

Of course, if someone is lucky enough to discover it, then they will make money, and they could even beat down the price of the Endless Gas Bottle, which is the core component of an Airship, severely, completely crushing the existing Plane-channel type Endless Gas Bottles in a price war.

If the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce is willing to engage in Airship freight insurance, Xia Duo is also willing to give it another push from behind by selling cheaper and better Airship air bags (Magic Rubber Shoes are already being sold, and others will discover this material sooner or later; the Tower of Time has already established a Magic Glue Research Center and is not worried about competition).

As for other components and final assembly, they can be left to others to do.

The money in this world can never be earned in full; it is enough to master the core technology and key processes. Leaving other steps to others can also form a benefit alliance, where everyone makes the cake bigger together, increasing the ability to resist risks while also reaping more benefits.

……

Under Xia Duo's repeated reminders, Zhenna finally made up her mind. Of course, what prompted her decision, besides the insurance prospects Xia Duo showed her, was the internal reform of the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce; this was an excellent opportunity!

As a Merchant, she is very clear that although internal reform is essentially about taking power from the subordinate branches, it cannot be done so directly when actually carrying it out.

Participating in the mineral development of the Grey Peak Mountains and the newly learned insurance business are important ways for her to reorganize the internal order of the Ming Shui Chamber of Commerce.