Insurance companies are in business to profit from premiums. Any claims they fill are considered losses. Their business is comfort to the mind of those insured. In reality, all insurance provides is a way of getting back up, and starting from scratch. You don't start where you left off, you start back at "GO". Insurance premiums are NOT investments. Insurance premiums are a way of borrowing money to set aside a savings for when some kind of disaster happens.
Technology changes everything about using history in this instance. I think you have to look at American history and how we've rebounded to hits on the economy. As time passes, we are more and more resilient. HISTORY has shown that.
And what short term results of destroyed economy are you talking about? We had a damaged economy, it wasn't destroyed.
And I will stick my neck out with this one: I believe that we will continue to prosper. People will learn from past experiences, and try to find ways to avoid similar disasters. (Short term history has shown that.)
The downfall will be when we collapse internally because there is so much contention from within. When we're fighting amongst ourselves more than we're fighting the enemy. When we prosper, we tend to keep wanting more. We continue to grow and everything advances. But then we let other things go. If success of the economy becomes more important than values in government, what happens to leadership? When greed overcomes teaching children to be honest, where does that leave our country in the future?