Insurance History and Bonnie and Clyde

摘要

Risk management, risk transfer and the beginnings of insurance as we know 1 it began thousands of years ago. The first recorded method of transferring or distributing risks in a monetary economy is from about 3000 B.C. Ancient Chinese writings tell how merchants would redistribute wares across many vessels to limit the merchant's potential loss due to the capsizing of any one vessel. Insurance is an agreement to transfer certain risks to another, usually for a fee. The oldest recording of insurance is in the Code of Hammurabi (circa 1750 B.C.). Hammurabi recorded that if a merchant received a loan to fund a shipment, he could pay the lender an additional sum in exchange for the lender's guarantee to cancel the loan should the shipment be stolen or lost at sea.