Street 'Surance is health insurance sold to the poorest sectors of American society, often door-to-door. Such policies are often worthless, the payout ratio being notoriously low. Most such companies engaged in this activity operate outside normal perameters and many are straightforwardly illegal. The pejorative use of the word 'Surance' refers to how the word Insurance may be pronounced by low income families, at whom such policies are targeted.
One of the best dramatized examples of Street 'Surance in modern culture is in the Matt Damon/Danny De Vito film 'Rainmaker', based on the novel by John Grisham, in which a young man with terminal cancer dies because the his "insurance policy" will not pay out. Unsurprisingly, the "Insurance company" is merely a Ponzi scheme and has been looted by the proprietor. The film revolves around a court case brought by the posthumous claimant (and his parents).
by The Other Irishman December 18, 2011