2 ms·

If I'm not mistaken, they also had yearly or life-time limits, removing the "losing" part of the betting from the system. Insurances are not bets, not more tha

If I'm not mistaken, they also had yearly or life-time limits, removing the "losing" part of the betting from the system. Insurances are not bets, not more than other commercial undertakings. They are, for the insured, hedges against bets. The bet is: I will not get sick with something that will ruin me financially. Or: My house will not burn down. You pay a steady, comparably small (to the risk) amount of money. Still the total amount of money paid by everybody is bigger than the total amount of pay-outs. In the case of these massive flooding, it's hard to make the pool big enough. That's why reinsurance companies exist, which can mix the risk pool of different types and locals.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> they also had yearly or life-time limits Usually, both. Plus, if you had high expenses they'd actively search for an (even unrelated) pre-existing condition as a pretext to cancel your coverage (recission).
Mz 9y ago
Insurances are not bets Origin story for Lloyd's of London: The patrons bet, for example, on whether Admiral John Byng would be shot for his incompetence in a naval battle with the French. He was. The gentlemen of Lloyd's would have had no qualms about taking my bet on my own life. Edward Lloyd realised his customers were as thirsty for information to fuel their bets as they were for coffee, and began to assemble a network of informants and a newsletter full of information about foreign ports, tides, and the comings and goings of ships. His newsletter became known as Lloyd's List. Lloyd's coffee house hosted ship auctions, and gatherings of sea captains who would share stories. If someone wished to insure a ship, that could be done too: a contract would be drawn up, and the insurer would sign his name underneath - hence the term "underwriter". It became hard to say quite where coffee-house gambling ended and formal insurance began. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38905963 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38905963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13911451#13912524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13911451#13912524

dragonwriter 9y ago

> they also had yearly or life-time limits Usually, both. Plus, if you had high expenses they'd actively search for an (even unrelated) pre-existing condition as a pretext to cancel your coverage (recission).

Mz 9y ago

Insurances are not bets Origin story for Lloyd's of London: The patrons bet, for example, on whether Admiral John Byng would be shot for his incompetence in a naval battle with the French. He was. The gentlemen of Lloyd's would have had no qualms about taking my bet on my own life. Edward Lloyd realised his customers were as thirsty for information to fuel their bets as they were for coffee, and began to assemble a network of informants and a newsletter full of information about foreign ports, tides, and the comings and goings of ships. His newsletter became known as Lloyd's List. Lloyd's coffee house hosted ship auctions, and gatherings of sea captains who would share stories. If someone wished to insure a ship, that could be done too: a contract would be drawn up, and the insurer would sign his name underneath - hence the term "underwriter". It became hard to say quite where coffee-house gambling ended and formal insurance began. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38905963 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38905963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13911451#13912524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13911451#13912524