The word insurance refers to any agreement where a person pays another person or business to indemnify the safety, but to be more precise, pay for the replacement of any such personal property if said possession is lost, destroyed, or damaged in some other way other then the neglect or willful destruction of the property by said owner. There is insurance for just about anything, insurance is generally divided into four areas; vehicle, property, health, and life insurance.
The imbursement sum usually goes to the agreed beneficiaries in the result of the policy holder’s death. The life insurance beneficiaries are usually predetermined when the insurance is purchased but can be altered by the policy holder at any time before his/hers death. The acknowledged sum is usually at least one hundred thousand dollars for your average plan. The amount can be increased but the premiums also increase. Another way to increase the sum is to have several life insurance policies for one policy holder.
The first known form of insurance appeared in China as early as 5000 BC. It was a way for traders and merchants to lessen their losses in the event their shipment was stolen or ruined. The first know form of life insurance began in ancient Rome. They were called burial clubs and they covered the cost of member’s funeral expense and help the members surviving family out fiscally.
Contemporary life insurance began in the late 17th century England as a replacement for traders insurance. In America the first modern life insurance plans began in the late 1760s. The Presbyterian Church in New York and Philadelphia created the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers in 1759. This was fashioned under the Christian doctrine that it is the responsibility of the Church to help the poor, needy, and widowed. Later the Episcopalian priests created a comparable fund in 1769. From 1787 to 1837 over a dozen life insurance companies came into being, but less then half survived that century.
Now in the modern age, insurance is a necessity for a normal life in every nation on Earth. Insurance now covers Life, property, wellbeing, and even accountability from lawsuits. The insurance business is now a multi-billion dollar industry. The first known insurance business was started after the Great London Fire in 1666. The fire destroyed 13,200 houses. After this tragedy, 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 was founded in Charleston, South Carolina in 1732. The company insured against fire damage and Benjamin Franklin assisted in popularizing the concept of insurance in the country at the time. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin founded the Philadelphia Contributorship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire. Franklin's company was the first to make contributions toward fire deterrence. His company also tried to warn against certain fire hazards, but it refused to cover structures that were at considerable risk of fire, such as wooden houses or warehouses.
