The insurance industry is one that affects nearly every aspect of people’s day-to-day lives. People can have insurance on their vehicles, homes, businesses, properties and even lives. The companies that provide these policies even eliminate risks in some cases, such as is the case when they demand additional safety measures on construction sites or offer incentives for safe drivers. The insurance industry, however, did not just appear overnight. It has had a long and storied past.
Insurance is about distributing risk. Merchants would distribute their supplies, wares and other property across multiple ships when traveling across treacherous rivers. This would reduce the risk of loss if any single vessel happened to capsize.
Insurance became far more sophisticated in Europe’s post-Renaissance period than it was during its ancient roots. The current model used by insurance companies throughout the world can be traced to 1680, but it continued to develop in the United States over the years, and at one point before the Civil War, the morally deficient practice of allowing slave owners to insure their slaves became somewhat popular. The 19th century also saw some insurance companies, like New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, expand from insuring just local citizens to the people in the entire region around them. This laid the groundwork for modern national insurance companies.
The Social Security Act of 1935 was the first nationally mandated form of insurance in the United States. The passage of this legislation gave rise to the concept in America that insurance was a valid and even ideal way for people to achieve personal economic security. This paved the way to getting insurance for the millions of people in America who have it. Once the federal government accepted insurance as a positive thing, the rest of the country soon followed.
No one can argue that insurance is a benefit for individuals throughout the world, but people didn’t always have this safety net. We live in a world where it’s just accepted that anyone with financial resources can secure insurance if they wish to, so it’s hard to imagine times when this choice didn’t exist. Thanks to ancient civilizations, however, the constant evolution of insurance continued throughout many millennia to lead to the system that we have in place today.
People have known for thousands of years that insurance policies are a knowledgeable investment. Take their advice and contact an agent at Strunk Insurance for a free Oklahoma City insurance quote today.
