Unemployment collective

Help friends who lose their jobs.
You never know when you may be fired and insurance can be expensive. Truth is you don't need a big insurance company to take your premiums and make a profit. I recently heard of a group of friends who decided to support each other in these uncertain times. They found 10 close friends who were gainfully employed and created a support collective. Each person put in $1000 to an interest baring bank account that gave 3% interest (this was a month ago). This money was available to any of the group who lost their job and needed a little extra support while they find other work. The group wrote up a simple agreement on appropriate uses and how much could be taken from the fund every month by those who needed it. It struck me that you could also ask the members of the collective to pay a small premium, say $50 per month, to build the fund over time. My initial reaction to this was that I might resent the money being used up by different group members but then I realized I'd probably already spent at least this amount of money on friends who had lost their jobs by buying them drinks and picking up the tab at restaurants.