History of insurance

In a sense we can say that insurance appears simultaneously with the appearance of human society. We know that two types of economies in human societies: money economies (with markets, money, financial instruments, etc.) and non-money or natural economies (without money, markets, financial instruments, etc.). The second type is an ancient form than the first. In such an economy and society can be seen in the form of insurance people helping each other. For example, if a house burns down, the members of the community help build a new one. If the same thing happens to the neighbors, the neighbors must help others. Otherwise, neighbors will not contribute to the future. This type of insurance has survived until today in some countries where the modern economy, with money from financial instruments is not widespread (for example countries in the territory of the former Soviet Union) .

If the insurance in the modern sense (ie, insurance money in a modern economy, where insurance is part of the financial sector), early methods of transferring or sharing risk were practiced by Chinese and Babylonian traders already in the 3. and 2 of the millennium BC, and [7]. Chinese merchants traveling treacherous river rapids spend their goods in many vessels have another vessel capsizing. The Babylonians developed a system that was in the famous Code of Hammurabi, C. 1750 BC, and the Mediterranean by the beginning of sailing merchants. If a dealer to get a loan to finance its mission, it gives the lender an additional sum in exchange for a lender to guarantee the loan to remove the shipment be stolen.

Achaemenid king of ancient Persia were the first to get their people and made the official record by means of insurance in the state notary. Insurance is tradition each year in Norouz (beginning of the Iranian new year), the heads of different ethnic groups and others willing to take part, presented gifts to the king. The most important gift was presented at a special ceremony. If a gift is worth more than 10,000 Derriks (Achaemenids gold coin) the issue of an office. This was an advantage for those who presented such gifts. For others, donations have been the confidence of the court. Then, the evaluation was in office.

The purpose of the request is that if the person the gift of the Court was in trouble, the monarch and the court help. Jahez, historian and author, wrote in one of his books on ancient Iran: "[W] Henever the owner is in trouble and wants to build a building that is a party, his children are married, etc in the court, the register. If the amount of more than 10,000 registered Derriks, he or she receives an amount equal to two times more [1].

A thousand years later, the inhabitants of Rhodes invented the concept of "accident". Merchants whose goods were combined, a proportionally divided premium which can be used to repay the merchant whose goods were jettisoned during storm or depression.

The Greeks and Romans introduced the origins of health and life insurance c. 600 AD when they organized guilds called "charitable societies", which care for families and paid for the funerals of its members by death. Guilds in the Middle Ages the same objective. The Talmud deals with several aspects of insurance property. Before insurance was established in the late 17th century friendly societies "existed in England, where people have given money to a global amount is used for emergencies.

Insurance (eg, insurance is not provided with loans or other forms of contracts) were in Genoa, in the 14th century, as well as pledges from insurance pools the property land. These new insurance contracts allowed insurance to be separated from investment, a separation of roles that the first useful in marine insurance. Insurance is much more complicated in the post-Renaissance Europe, and specialized varieties developed.

At the end of the seventeenth century, the growing importance of London as a center of trade increased demand for marine insurance. In the late 1680s, Edward Lloyd, a cafe that became a popular meeting place for shipowners, merchants and masters of vessels, and a reliable source for the transmission of news. He was the forum for all parties to ensure the cargo and vessels, and by the power companies. Today, Lloyd's of London is the largest market (note that this is not insurance) for shipping and other forms of insurance, but it does not, contrary to the known types of the insurance.

Insurance, as we know it today, May the great fire of London, which in 1666 devoured 13,200 houses. As a result of this disaster, Nicholas Barbon opened an office for the building. In 1680, he founded the first England Fire Insurance Company, "The Fire Office" to ensure the brick houses.

The first insurer to guarantee the United States was on fire and Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina in 1732. Benjamin Franklin helped to popularize the practice and the level of insurance, particularly against fire in the form of perpetual insurance. In 1752, he founded the Philadelphia Ship Contribution to insure against the loss of homes by the fire. Franklin was the first company to contribute to the prevention of forest fires. Not only did his company warn against certain fire hazards, they refused some buildings where the fire risk is too great, all wooden houses. In the United States, to regulate the insurance industry is fragmented, with the responsibility of each state insurance departments. Whereas insurance markets are central to national and international level, state insurance commissioners to work individually, at any time through a concert by the National Insurance Commissioners organization. In recent years, some have a dual system of federal regulations (commonly known as the Optional Federal Charter (OFC)) for insurance similar to that oversees state banks and national banks.