You might be interested to know that the U.S. insurance industry was the brainchild of Benjamin Franklin. The first type of insurance that was available in what was then the English colony of Pennsylvania (this was 1752) was the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, which was founded by Franklin himself. By paying into a common fund, home and building owners could be assured that if their property was damaged or destroyed by fire, they would be indemnified – in other words, their property would be replaced or restored to its former condition.
Between three and six thousand years ago, with the rise of mercantile capitalism, traders had to find a way to protect themselves in case a cargo of goods was lost of stolen. In ancient China, it was common to have one’s wares shipped in several small boats so as to prevent a catastrophic loss of an entire shipment. At the same time in the Middle East, Babylonian merchants taking out loans to finance their voyages paid a surcharge to the lender at the time they took out the loan. This was essentially to insure the cargo against loss, so that if it were lost or stolen, the merchant would not have to repay the loan.
This took various forms; for example, ancient Chinese merchants traveling along that country’s often dangerous river routes would distribute their merchandise among several different small vessels so as to limit the losses should one of them sink, be destroyed or attacked. Among the Babylonians, when a merchant took out a loan to fund a shipment, he would pay an additional amount to the lender, which would obligate that lender to cancel the loan should the shipment be lost.
Today, it is theoretically possible to insure virtually any venture or property you can think of – for a price. In practice, most people today only carry insurance on their automobiles (which is required by law in all but two states) and their dwelling (homeowner’s and renter’s insurance).
The cost of insurance coverage depends on the risk as determined by people known as actuaries. These workers employ rather complex mathematical formulas in order to calculate the odds that an insured (the person who is covered) is going to experience a loss for which the company would have to pay.
In practice, most insurers will not take on high risks – and if they do, the insured (the person who buys a policy) must usually pay a steep price. For example, a driver who has many traffic violations on his record or who has had multiple accidents is considered a “high risk” by many auto insurers. Likewise, a property owner who fails to maintain his buildings or lands properly can also be considered high risk. You can minimize the costs of your coverage by keeping a clean driving record – or, when it comes to other types of property insurance such as homeowners and renter’s, installing fire and burglar alarms and other approved security devices.
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