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Insurance companies typically force the insured company to be proactive, i.e. start thinking about cyber-security (or fire safety, or employee driver training, etc.) *before* something catastrophic happens.

Yes. The company famous for that is The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Back when steam engines were high-tech, and blew up frequently, Hartford Steam Boiler was established in 1866 to insure them. More than half the company's staff is boiler inspectors. They inspect before they issue the policy, and the policy gives them the right to inspect whenever they want to, which they do regularly. Very, very seldom does a boiler insured by Hartford Steam Boiler blow up.

Many companies don't like that level of intrusiveness by an insurance company. On the other hand, it's been decades since a boiler insured by Hartford Steam Boiler blew up. It's time for computing to grow up and get that level of hard-ass attitude.

Power distribution nightmares - although super conducting main lines like they're using in New York are very promising.

There are some risks as well. http://www.hsb.com/theLocomotive/Story/FullStory/ST-FS-SOLAR.html One grid means one point of failure. Three days in Houston with no power was bad enough.

the problem with aluminum wiring was the corrosion problem as aluminum corrodes fast

No. The problem with aluminum wiring is thermal expansion and contraction. When it heats up (resistive losses from the current flowing through it) and cools off, it expands and contracts more than copper. Basically, your aluminum wiring is wiggling a little bit as you turn stuff on and off, which leads to an increased failure rate.

There are ways to mitigate the problem - different aluminum alloys, copper pigtails to fixtures - but it appears that copper is still safer.

Hell I am testing Cu clad Al cat5e wire right now.

Data cable obviously carries different levels of current than power cable, and data cable failure won't burn your house down.

Not exactly - it has more to do with starting the compresor against full high-side pressure. The critical time preiod is "finish to start", not "start to start".

Short and sweet link.
https://hsb.com/thelocomotive/RecentClaims/FullStory/RC-FS-LOCOCL9.html

But they dont create a TOTAL blackout.

Yeah They do.

Hartford Steam Boiler offers good rates, but requires intrusive inspections. Before they insure something, they inspect and provide a list of things they want fixed. Then they inspect again, after the problems are fixed. Only then will they provide insurance coverage. They then have the right to inspect at any time, and they use it.

This works great for steam boilers (where they have great expertise) but they haven't tried to expand much out of their niche. Even though they do cover some computers, they're still mostly focused on boilers. It's good that others are now moving in that direction.

This is the right approach. When Hartford Steam Boiler started in 1866, steam boilers blew up regularly. Within a few years, boilers insured by Hartford Steam Boiler weren't blowing up. A similar approach may eliminate computer crashes as a major problem. The day may well come when you can't buy insurance because you have an insecure OS on the premises.

The key idea behind Hartford Steam Boiler is inspections. They inspect before issuing the policy, and they tell you what you have to fix before you get coverage. They inspect during the policy, sometimes when you're not expecting it. They insist on things being done right so that they don't fail.

This hardass approach works. When Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance started in 1866, boilers blew up frequently. Today, boiler explosions are rare, and boiler explosions for boilers insured by Hartford Steam Boiler are almost unheard of.

If you want reliability, that's a proven way to get it.

One big problem is that many companies hate the intrusiveness of a machinery breakdown insurer. Hartford Steam Boiler won't insure something until their inspectors have been all over it and everything they want fixed has been fixed. Companies with well-run plants get great rates from Hartford Steam Boiler. Others get turned down.

The computer industry has succeeded in pushing failure costs onto their customers, rather than having to insure them. But that may not last forever. It was like that for boilers once, too.