insurance

History of insurance

2008-03-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

In some sense we can say that insurance appears simultaneously with the appearance of human society. We know of two types of economies in human societies: money economies (with markets, money, financial instruments and so on) and non-money or natural economies (without money, markets, financial instruments and so on). The second type is a more ancient form than the first. In such an economy and community, we can see insurance in the form of people helping each other. For example, if a house burns down, the members of the community help build a new one. Should the same thing happen to one's neighbour, the other neighbours must help. Otherwise, neighbours will not receive help in the future. This type of insurance has survived to the present day in some countries where modern money economy with its financial instruments is not widespread (for example countries in the territory of the former Soviet Union).

Turning to insurance in the modern sense (i.e., insurance in a modern money economy, in which insurance is part of the financial sphere), early methods of transferring or distributing risk were practiced by Chinese and Babylonian traders as long ago as the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, respectively. Chinese merchants travelling treacherous river rapids would redistribute their wares across many vessels to limit the loss due to any single vessel's capsizing. The Babylonians developed a system which was recorded in the famous Code of Hammurabi, c. 1750 BC, and practiced by early Mediterranean sailing merchants. If a merchant received a loan to fund his shipment, he would pay the lender an additional sum in exchange for the lender's guarantee to cancel the loan should the shipment be stolen.

Achaemenian monarchs were the first to insure their people and made it official by registering the insuring process in governmental notary offices. The insurance tradition was performed each year in Norouz (beginning of the Iranian New Year); the heads of different ethnic groups as well as others willing to take part, presented gifts to the monarch. The most important gift was presented during a special ceremony. When a gift was worth more than 10,000 Derrik (Achaemenian gold coin) the issue was registered in a special office. This was advantageous to those who presented such special gifts. For others, the presents were fairly assessed by the confidants of the court. Then the assessment was registered in special offices.

The purpose of registering was that whenever the person who presented the gift registered by the court was in trouble, the monarch and the court would help him. Jahez, a historian and writer, writes in one of his books on ancient Iran: "[W]henever the owner of the present is in trouble or wants to construct a building, set up a feast, have his children married, etc. the one in charge of this in the court would check the registration. If the registered amount exceeded 10,000 Derrik, he or she would receive an amount of twice as much."[1]

A thousand years later, the inhabitants of Rhodes invented the concept of the 'general average'. Merchants whose goods were being shipped together would pay a proportionally divided premium which would be used to reimburse any merchant whose goods were jettisoned during storm or sinkage.

The Greeks and Romans introduced the origins of health and life insurance c. 600 AD when they organized guilds called "benevolent societies" which cared for the families and paid funeral expenses of members upon death. Guilds in the Middle Ages served a similar purpose. The Talmud deals with several aspects of insuring goods. Before insurance was established in the late 17th century, "friendly societies" existed in England, in which people donated amounts of money to a general sum that could be used for emergencies.

Separate insurance contracts (i.e., insurance policies not bundled with loans or other kinds of contracts) were invented in Genoa in the 14th century, as were insurance pools backed by pledges of landed estates. These new insurance contracts allowed insurance to be separated from investment, a separation of roles that first proved useful in marine insurance. Insurance became far more sophisticated in post-Renaissance Europe, and specialized varieties developed.

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, London's growing importance as a centre for trade increased demand for marine insurance. In the late 1680s, Mr. Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house that became a popular haunt of ship owners, merchants, and ships’ captains, and thereby a reliable source of the latest shipping news. It became the meeting place for parties wishing to insure cargoes and ships, and those willing to underwrite such ventures. Today, Lloyd's of London remains the leading market (note that it is not an insurance company) for marine and other specialist types of insurance, but it works rather differently than the more familiar kinds of insurance.

Insurance as we know it today can be traced to the Great Fire of London, which in 1666 devoured 13,200 houses. In the aftermath of this disaster, Nicholas Barbon opened an office to insure buildings. In 1680, he established England's first fire insurance company, "The Fire Office," to insure brick and frame homes.

The first insurance company in the United States underwrote fire insurance and was formed in Charles Town (modern-day Charleston), South Carolina, in 1732.

Benjamin Franklin helped to popularize and make standard the practice of insurance, particularly against fire in the form of perpetual insurance. In 1752, he founded the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire. Franklin's company was the first to make contributions toward fire prevention. Not only did his company warn against certain fire hazards, it refused to insure certain buildings where the risk of fire was too great, such as all wooden houses.

In the United States, regulation of the insurance industry is highly Balkanized, with primary responsibility assumed by individual state insurance departments. Whereas insurance markets have become centralized nationally and internationally, state insurance commissioners operate individually, though at times in concert through a national insurance commissioners' organization. In recent years, some have called for a dual state and federal regulatory system for insurance similar to that which oversees state banks and national banks.

In the state of New York, which has unique laws in keeping with its stature as a global business centre, former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was in a unique position to grapple with major national insurance brokerages. Spitzer alleged that Marsh & McLennan steered business to insurance carriers based on the amount of contingent commissions that could be extracted from carriers, rather than basing decisions on whether carriers had the best deals for clients. Several of the largest commercial insurance brokerages have since stopped accepting contingent commissions and have adopted new business models.

Cities : wikipedia

THE FUNCTION OF THE INSURANCE

2008-02-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

The insurance was very important for us
moreover modern this that already increasingly
and increasingly sophisticated too
and each kind of humankind would not tau when someone that akan
Experienced the accident or something will threaten us
then we definitely will regard that the insurance must be really important
and the time was increasingly sophisticated was no longer necessary very busy insured us
because now already plenty of companies that Well-off
to guarantee our safety.

At first if we insured ourselves should not forget always to hard-working paid tax
to the company's side where we insured ourselves.
But the insurance also tdak only for our self
still many others that could we save
for example things yg we have
also could we like for example the house, the car, the motor,
in fact until the company also could be insured by us

Plenty of benefits from the insurance.
Apart from guaranteeing our safety or things that we have
also they were able to replace the thing our has was lost if
someone that was affected by the disaster.
That a part function of however many functions of the available insurance.
That in the long run we no longer worried towards the threat that will be
brought misfortune on ourselves also things that were owned by us.

Then if the time has been increasingly sophisticated why also we can't
to make our life increasingly Sophisticated??
All the choices were our plan, both that the well-off choice make we increasingly went up and increasingly were buried.
But in a manner logic while we were still healthy the body and spiritual definitely we will choose the life that will make ourselves increasingly wanted.
It is hoped all of our wishes could be fulfilled with all the efforts that were carried
out by us

Top 10 Things to Know About Life Insurance

2007-11-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

We all recognize the importance of life insurance. After all, we want to make sure that our loved ones are taken care of when we die. But before you run out and purchase a policy, do some research ahead of time. That way, you'll be sure to get the best possible coverage at the right price. Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

1. Shop around
2. Never buy more coverage than you need
3. The healthier you are, the better the rates
4. Buy sooner rather than later
5. Realize the importance of periodically reviewing your coverage
6. You don't necessarily have to pay a commission
7. You may be paying more for monthly premium payments
8. Don't rely solely on the life insurance offered by your employer
9. Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
10. Buying more is sometimes cheaper

Shop around
When it comes to life insurance, it pays to shop around because premiums can vary widely. And thanks to the Internet, it's now easier than ever. Try out one of the many insurance websites that can provide you with instant quotes. Make sure the website you shop from takes into consideration the factors in your medical history that can affect the premiums.

Never buy more coverage than you need
The key to purchasing the right amount of life insurance is to have just enough coverage to meet your needs. If you have more life insurance than you need, you'll be paying unnecessarily for higher premiums. On the other hand, it's important not to have too little coverage, resulting in you being underinsured.

The healthier you are, the better the rates
It's true – healthy people get better rates on life insurance. You will be asked to pay a higher rate for anything that shortens your life expectancy (e.g., if you smoke, take medications regularly, are overweight, have a bad driving record).

Buy sooner rather than later
If you've been putting off purchasing life insurance because you don't want to pay the premiums, you may be doing yourself a disservice in the long run. The younger you are when you purchase life insurance, the lower your premiums will be.

Realize the importance of periodically reviewing your coverage
Any life change signals the need for a review of your overall financial plan. When it comes to life insurance coverage, you'll want to make sure that this major life event (e.g., birth of a child, children are grown) won't leave you underinsured or overinsured.

You don't necessarily have to pay a commission
One of the reasons for higher premiums is that most life insurance policies pay commissions to the agent/broker. However, you may be able to purchase a no-load policy through an insurer that sells no-load policies directly to consumers.

You may be paying more for monthly premium payments
You may not realize it, but you may be paying more for your life insurance if you pay your premium in monthly installments. Many insurance companies charge extra fees if you make monthly premium payments instead of paying the annual premium.

Don't rely solely on the life insurance offered by your employer
Many employers offer their employees some sort of group life insurance. But this amount of coverage is usually not enough to adequately meet your life insurance needs. In addition, group life insurance policies are not portable, meaning that if you leave your job, you can't take your life insurance coverage with you.

Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth
If you're thinking about lying on your insurance application, think again. If your insurance company finds out that you lied about a health-related condition or your lifestyle (e.g., smoking habit), they may be able to terminate your coverage.

Buying more is sometimes cheaper
Life insurance usually costs less per thousand dollars once you get into higher coverage amounts (e.g., $250,000). If the numbers work out, you may be able to pay a lower premium while increasing your coverage.

Please note that this description/explanation is intended only as a guideline.

viled from : wiki

Principles of insurance

2007-11-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

Commercially insurable risks typically share seven common characteristics.

A large number of homogeneous exposure units. The vast majority of insurance policies are provided for individual members of very large classes. Automobile insurance, for example, covered about 175 million automobiles in the United States in 2004.1 The existence of a large number of homogeneous exposure units allows insurers to benefit from the so-called “law of large of numbers,” which in effect states that as the number of exposure units increases, the actual results are increasingly likely to become close to expected results. There are exceptions to this criterion. Lioys's of London is famous for insuring the life or health of actors, actresses and sports figures. Satellite Launch insurance covers events that are infrequent. Large commercial property policies may insure exceptional properties for which there are no ‘homogeneous’ exposure units. Despite failing on this criterion, many exposures like these are generally considered to be insurable.

Accidental Loss. The event that constitutes the trigger of a claim should be fortuitous, or at least outside the control of the beneficiary of the insurance. The loss should be ‘pure,’ in the sense that it results from an event for which there is only the opportunity for cost. Events that contain speculative elements, such as ordinary business risks, are generally not considered insurable.
Large Loss. The size of the loss must be meaningful from the perspective of the insured. Insurance premiums need to cover both the expected cost of losses, plus the cost of issuing and administering the policy, adjusting losses, and supplying the capital needed to reasonably assure that the insurer will be able to pay claims. For small losses these latter costs may be several times the size of the expected cost of losses. There is little point in paying such costs unless the protection offered has real value to a buyer.
Affordable Premium. If the likelihood of an insured event is so high, or the cost of the event so large, that the resulting premium is large relative to the amount of protection offered, it is not likely that anyone will buy insurance, even if on offer. Further, as the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards (See FAS 113 for example), the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer. If there is no such chance of loss, the transaction may have the form of insurance, but not the substance.

Limited risk of catastrophically large losses. The essential risk is often aggregation. If the same event can cause losses to numerous policyholders of the same insurer, the ability of that insurer to issue policies becomes constrained, not by factors surrounding the individual characteristics of a given policyholder, but by the factors surrounding the sum of all policyholders so exposed. Typically, insurers prefer to limit their exposure to a loss from a single event to some small portion of their capital base, on the order of 5 percent. Where the loss can be aggregated, or an individual policy could produce exceptionally large claims, the capital constraint will restrict an insurers appetite for additional policyholders. The classic example is earthquake insurance, where the ability of an underwriter to issue a new policy depends on the number and size of the policies that it has already underwritten. Wind insurance in hurricane zones, particularly along coast lines, is another example of this phenomenon. In extreme cases, the aggregation can affect the entire industry, since the combined capital of insurers and reinsurers can be small compared to the needs of potential policyholders in areas exposed to aggregation risk. In commercial fire insurance it is possible to find single properties whose total exposed value is well in excess of any individual insurer’s capital constraint. Such properties are generally shared among several insurers, or are insured by a single insurer who syndicates the risk into the reinsurnce market.

Viled from :wiki