79 Fun Facts About Insurance

Which Babylonian legal text of c.1750 BC had shipping-loan rules seen as early insurance?

The Code of Hammurabi freed a merchant's agent from repaying a trade loan if robbers seized the goods on the journey, shifting the loss to the lender, a risk transfer seen as early insurance.

The first known stand-alone insurance contract, dated 1347, was written in which Italian city?

Genoese merchants also invented insurance pools backed by pledges of landed estates, and Venice set up a specialised marine-insurance court in 1436.

The Great Fire of London, which spurred the first fire insurers, happened in which year?

The Great Fire of 1666 began at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane and destroyed more than 13,000 houses in four days, creating the demand that the first fire insurance offices met.

Which English economist set up the first fire insurance company, the "Insurance Office for Houses", in 1681?

Nicholas Barbon, a physician turned property developer, set up the Insurance Office for Houses with eleven associates at the back of the Royal Exchange in 1681, insuring brick houses rebuilt after the Great Fire.

In the 1700s, British insurers marked insured buildings with metal plaques for their brigades. What were they called?

By 1825 they had become more advertisement than identification, and genuine period plaques are now valuable enough that fakes are made.

Which London insurer, founded in 1710, is described as the oldest surviving property insurance company?

Sun Fire Office, founded in London in 1710, merged into Sun Alliance and then Royal & Sun Alliance, the group later renamed RSA, which is why it is described as the oldest surviving property insurer.

Where in London did Edward Lloyd open the 1680s coffee house that became Lloyd's of London?

Edward Lloyd's coffee house stood on Tower Street from about 1686 before moving to Lombard Street in 1691, where it became the meeting place for ship owners and marine underwriters.

What are the individual private backers of the Lloyd's of London market traditionally called?

Names are the individuals who, under unlimited liability, backed Lloyd's syndicates with their entire personal wealth; the asbestos and pollution losses of 1988 to 1992 ruined many of them.

'Underwriter' comes from Lloyd's backers signing beneath the risk details on which document?

A slip was the sheet on which a Lloyd's broker set out the voyage and its risk; each backer wrote his name and share beneath it, and the term underwriter spread to banking and securities.

What is the Latin motto of Lloyd's of London?

Fidentia is Latin for confidence, and it is the motto displayed on the Lloyd's of London coat of arms.

The Lloyd's Underwriting Room bell came from which frigate, wrecked off the Dutch coast in 1799?

HMS Lutine sank off Vlieland on 9 October 1799 carrying about £1.2 million in gold and silver, most of it never recovered; her bell, salvaged in 1858, was hung in the Lloyd's Underwriting Room.

One stroke of the Lloyd's Underwriting Room bell signalled what about an overdue ship?

One stroke of the bell carried a verdict on the overdue ship: It had been lost. Two strokes meant a safe arrival, so underwriters stopped trading reinsurance on the vessel the moment its fate was known.

What was the annual premium for insuring Titanic's hull for £1 million?

The rate was 15 shillings per £100, so insuring £1 million of hull cost £7,500 a year, and the claim was paid in full after the April 1912 sinking.

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Lloyd's underwriter Cuthbert Heath told his local agent to do what?

Heath's telegram said to Pay every claim in full, irrespective of policy terms, while other insurers disputed whether fire policies covered fires caused by the earthquake; the decision cemented Lloyd's reputation in the American market.

Lloyd's reportedly insured which part of Riverdance star Michael Flatley's body?

His legs were the insured asset: Michael Flatley's legs were covered through Lloyd's during his Riverdance and Lord of the Dance years, with a reported value in the tens of millions of dollars.

The Lloyd's building at 1 Lime Street, completed in 1986, was designed by which architect?

Richard Rogers designed the inside-out Lloyd's building, with lifts, ducts and stairs on the outside; completed in 1986 on the site of East India House, it was Grade I listed in 2011.

Which Founding Father organised the Philadelphia Contributionship fire insurer in 1752?

Benjamin Franklin organised the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire in 1752, a mutual modelled on London's fire offices and the oldest American property insurer.

In 1781 the Philadelphia Contributionship annoyed customers by requiring them to remove what from outside their houses?

Trees in front of a house were banned because they hindered firefighting; the 1784 rival Mutual Assurance Company accepted them and became known as the Green Tree company from the tree on its plaque.

Which astronomer published the first life table in 1693, using Breslau's birth and death records?

Edmond Halley's 1693 paper used Breslau's records of births and burials to construct a life table giving the odds of surviving each further year, and it is seen as a founding work of demography.

Which job title did Edward Rowe Mores give the Equitable Society's chief official in 1762?

Actuary was the title Mores chose for the chief official of the Society for Equitable Assurances, founded in 1762 on James Dodson's mathematics; the word came from the Latin actuarius, a clerk or account keeper.

What is the British English term for what US insurers call a deductible?

The excess is the British term for the first slice of a claim the policyholder bears; choosing a higher excess usually buys a cheaper premium because the insurer no longer handles many small claims.

What is it called when a reinsurer passes part of a risk on to yet another reinsurer?

Retrocession is reinsurance of reinsurance; layers of it created the London market 'spiral' after the 1988 Piper Alpha explosion, when syndicates found they held the same loss several times over.

Which doctrine lets an insurer that paid a claim sue the party at fault?

Subrogation lets the insurer step into its customer's shoes to recover from the party at fault; its rights are wholly derivative, so it can never recover more than the customer could have.

Economists' modern study of "moral hazard" began in the 1960s with which Nobel-winning economist?

Kenneth Arrow's 1963 paper on the welfare economics of medical care brought moral hazard into modern economics, and he shared the 1972 Nobel memorial prize in economics.

Which of these professional reinsurers was founded in 1863?

Swiss Re was founded in Zürich in 1863 after the Glarus fire of 1861 exposed how little capacity Swiss insurers had; the earliest specialist reinsurer, Cologne Re, dated from 1846.

Insurance contracts are governed by which Latin principle requiring full disclosure of material facts?

Uberrima fides, utmost good faith, obliges the insured to disclose all material facts before the contract is made, the opposite of the buyer-beware rule that governs most other sales.

What do the letters in the auto insurer GEICO stand for?

Government Employees Insurance Company was never a government body; Leo and Lillian Goodwin founded it in San Antonio in 1936 to sell low-cost car insurance to federal workers and military officers.

Warren Buffett wrote up GEICO in 1951 while studying at Columbia under which value-investing mentor?

Benjamin Graham taught Buffett at Columbia and chaired GEICO, which is why Buffett visited its Washington office in 1951 and wrote the article 'The Security I Like Best' recommending the stock.

Berkshire Hathaway's first move into insurance, in March 1967, was the purchase of which Omaha company?

National Indemnity, bought from Jack Ringwalt for $8.6 million in March 1967, was the same subsidiary that decades later took on the pre-1993 liabilities of Lloyd's members through the Equitas deal.

Before British actor Jake Wood, which American sitcom star was among the voices of the GEICO Gecko?

Kelsey Grammer, the Frasier star, supplied the Gecko's original voice when the character debuted in 1999, before British voices took over the role.

State Farm, the insurer founded in 1922, has its headquarters in which Illinois city?

Retired farmer George J. Mecherle founded State Farm in Bloomington in 1922 as a mutual offering farmers cheaper rates than urban drivers paid, and the company kept its headquarters in Bloomington.

Which singer-songwriter wrote State Farm's famous 1971 jingle about being a good neighbor?

Barry Manilow wrote 'Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There' in 1971, years before his own hit records; Weezer recorded a cover of it in 2011.

Allstate was founded in 1931 as a subsidiary of which retailer?

Sears, Roebuck launched Allstate in 1931 at the urging of chairman Robert E. Wood, selling car insurance by mail and later from booths in Sears stores; the name came from a Sears tire brand.

Which actress and comedian first played Progressive's spokesperson Flo in 2008?

Stephanie Courtney, a Groundlings comedy troupe alumna, first appeared as Flo in 2008 and went on to play several of Flo's relatives in the same campaign.

What word does the F stand for in the original name behind the acronym Aflac?

Family is the F in American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus, founded in Columbus, Georgia in 1955 by the brothers John, Paul and Bill Amos, which pioneered cancer insurance in 1958.

Which comedian voiced the Aflac Duck until he was dropped in 2011 over Japan tsunami jokes?

Gilbert Gottfried had quacked for the duck since 2000; Aflac, which earns most of its revenue in Japan, fired him in March 2011 over his tweets and picked Daniel McKeague from an open casting call.

Which cartoon character served as MetLife's corporate mascot from 1985 until 2016?

Snoopy fronted MetLife's advertising and blimps from 1985 until 2016, when the company dropped the Peanuts licence as it refocused on corporate clients while spinning off its US retail arm.

Prudential Financial's long-running logo depicts which landmark?

The Rock of Gibraltar was adopted in 1896 after adman Mortimer Remington, riding a train past Laurel Hill in Secaucus, New Jersey, thought of the Rock as a symbol of strength.

Which president signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935?

Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Act as the centrepiece of his Second New Deal; the first Social Security card went to John Sweeney in 1936, who died before collecting a cent of retirement benefits.

The first monthly Social Security benefit check, issued to Ida May Fuller in 1940, was for how much?

Ida May Fuller's first check of $22.54 was dated 31 January 1940; she lived to 100 and collected nearly $23,000 after paying in $24.75. Ernest Ackerman's first lump-sum payout, in 1937, was 17 cents.

Who received the first Medicare card at the 1965 signing of the law?

Harry Truman, who had proposed national health insurance in 1945, was handed Medicare card number one at his presidential library in Independence, Missouri, on 30 July 1965; the same law created Medicaid.

Medicare Part D, which took effect in 2006, covers what?

Prescription drugs are what Part D covers; the benefit was created by the Medicare Modernization Act that George W. Bush signed in December 2003 and began on 1 January 2006.

Under the Affordable Care Act, dependents may stay on a parent's health plan until what age?

Coverage lasts until the dependent turns 26 under a rule that took effect for plan years beginning on or after 23 September 2010, even if the child is married or no longer lives at home.

In the 2012 Sebelius case, the Supreme Court upheld the ACA's individual mandate by calling its penalty what?

A tax was what Chief Justice Roberts called the penalty, upholding it under Congress's taxing power while holding that the Commerce Clause could not compel a purchase; the 2017 tax law later set it to zero.

The 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act left insurance regulation mainly to which level of government?

The states kept primary authority because Congress passed the Act after the Supreme Court's 1944 South-Eastern Underwriters ruling had held that insurance was interstate commerce subject to federal antitrust law.

The FDIC, which insures US bank deposits, was created by which piece of legislation?

The Banking Act of 1933, also known as Glass-Steagall, created the FDIC despite the president's fear that deposit insurance would reward unsound banking; the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act made the $250,000 limit permanent.

The first US state insurance commissioner was appointed in 1851 in which state?

The first state reserve-requirement law had already been passed in 1837, and the first US stock insurer was chartered in 1792.

In insurance and contract law, what does the phrase "act of God" describe?

An event with no direct human cause is an act of God, such as a lightning strike or earthquake; the Latin equivalent is damnum fatale, and flood or crop cover exists precisely to pay for such events.

Which state adopted the first no-fault auto insurance law, in 1970?

Massachusetts passed the Keeton-O'Connell style no-fault law in 1970, taking effect on 1 January 1971, with state representative Michael Dukakis as its chief sponsor.

The world's first pet insurance policy was written in 1890 in which country?

Sweden's Claes Virgin wrote the first pet insurance policy in 1890, covering horses and livestock; Britain's first pet policy followed in 1947, and the first American policy was written for the TV collie Lassie in 1982.

Which country wrote about 45 percent of the world's insurance premiums in 2023?

The United States wrote $3.226 trillion of the $7.186 trillion global premium total in 2023, about 45 percent and more than four times the second-largest market.

Allianz, the insurance group founded in 1890, is headquartered in which city?

Allianz began trading in Berlin in 1890 and moved its head office to Munich in 1949 after Germany was divided; its asset-management arm includes PIMCO.

In which year did Lloyd's List print its final daily paper edition?

Lloyd's List, founded in 1734 as Lloyd's coffee-house newsletter, printed its last paper edition, issue 60,850, on 20 December 2013 and went online only.

What was the first modern life insurance company, founded in London in 1706, called?

The Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office, chartered in 1706, capped membership at 2,000; each member paid a fixed annual sum per share, and a slice of the fund was split yearly among the families of the dead.

In which year was the earliest known life insurance policy, on William Gybbons, written at London's Royal Exchange?

The 1583 policy saw Richard Martin insure William Gybbons' life for twelve months; Gybbons died within the year, and the underwriters argued in vain that the term meant twelve lunar months.

The Society for Equitable Assurances, founded in 1762, pioneered which life-insurance practice?

Premiums based on the buyer's age, calculated from mortality tables using James Dodson's work, were the Equitable's innovation; earlier offices had charged everyone the same rate regardless of age.

American life insurance began in 1759 with a relief fund for the widows and children of which denomination's clergy?

The Presbyterian Ministers' Fund, chartered in Philadelphia in 1759 to support the widows and children of Presbyterian clergy, is counted as America's first life insurer; Episcopalian priests set up a similar fund in 1769.

Unlike permanent life policies, what do term life policies not build up over time?

A cash value is what term cover never accumulates: it runs for a set span, typically 10 to 30 years, and pays out only if the insured dies within it; permanent policies build savings the owner can borrow against.

Besides whole life and universal life, what is the third basic type of permanent life insurance?

Endowment policies pay out either on death or on a set maturity date, whichever comes first, which made them a popular savings vehicle before tax rules tightened.

A typical American life policy's suicide clause voids the contract within how long of purchase?

Two years is the standard suicide exclusion, after which the policy pays even for suicide; a few states shorten it by statute to one year, and most states also cap the contestability period at two years.

What single product did Prudential sell when it started in Newark, New Jersey, in 1875?

Burial insurance was the whole business of the Prudential Friendly Society, founded by John F. Dryden, who later sat in the Senate for New Jersey from 1902 to 1907.

Northwestern Mutual was founded in 1857 as the Mutual Life Insurance Company of which state?

The Mutual Life Insurance Company of the State of Wisconsin began in Janesville and moved to Milwaukee in 1859, the year a train wreck produced its first two death claims, which exceeded its assets until the president lent the difference.

MetLife's 1863 predecessor, National Union Life and Limb, was set up to insure whom?

Civil War soldiers and sailors were its market: the 1863 company covered them against disability from wartime wounds, accidents and sickness, and after it became Metropolitan Life in 1868 it sold millions of 'industrial' policies collected door to door.

The tontine is named after a 17th-century banker from which city?

Lorenzo de Tonti, a banker from Naples, pitched the scheme to the French crown in 1653 and the Parlement de Paris rejected it; Louis XIV finally used a tontine in 1689 to fund his wars.

Which 1905 New York inquiry into how life insurers sold tontine policies led to their effective ban?

The Armstrong Investigation, with Charles Evans Hughes as counsel, exposed how the Equitable and its imitators had sold roughly 9 million tontine policies since Henry Baldwin Hyde introduced them in 1868, and New York outlawed deferred-dividend policies in 1906.

Which German chancellor introduced old-age pensions, accident insurance and medical care in the 1880s?

Otto von Bismarck's laws created health insurance in 1883, accident insurance in 1884 and old-age and disability pensions in 1889, partly to undercut the socialists.

What is a loss called when repairing a ship would cost more than its insured value?

Constructive total loss applies when a ship or cargo is abandoned because recovery or repair would cost more than its insured value, so the insurer pays as for a total loss.

What is the name for the money an insurer holds after collecting premiums but before paying claims?

Float is the money an insurer holds between collecting premiums and paying claims; Warren Buffett has called it the engine of Berkshire Hathaway, since investment income on it can outweigh an underwriting loss.

The York Antwerp Rules govern which maritime loss-sharing principle?

General average requires all parties to a voyage to share proportionally a loss deliberately incurred to save the ship, such as jettisoned cargo; the York Antwerp Rules, first agreed in 1877, standardise the adjustment.

The US Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, creating a shared public-private compensation system, was passed in which year?

The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, signed that November, was a direct response to the losses insurers faced after the September 11 attacks; Congress later extended it repeatedly.

Which measure of underwriting performance compares an insurer's expenses and losses to its premiums?

Combined ratio adds losses and expenses and divides by earned premium; a figure under 100% means an underwriting profit, and the US property-casualty industry lost $142.3 billion on underwriting in the five years to 2003.

Insurance agents who write policies for only one company are described as what?

Captive agents sell for a single insurer and are often its employees; independent agents, by contrast, can place policies with several companies.

What cover protects an event organiser who offers a big reward for a half-court shot or hole-in-one?

Prize indemnity insurance lets sponsors dangle huge prizes for a hole-in-one or half-court shot without risking a payout they cannot afford; the insurer sets the premium from the odds of the feat.

Which US law governs nuclear incident insurance for the nuclear industry?

The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 caps operators' liability and pools industry funds to compensate the public after a nuclear accident; ordinary home and business policies exclude nuclear risks entirely.

Which industry insider is noted for doubting that insurers can profit forever on investment income alone?

Hank Greenberg, who ran AIG as chief executive for nearly four decades, argued that underwriting itself must be profitable rather than relying on investment returns.

A 1816 excavation in Minya, Egypt found a Roman-era tablet with the rules and dues of what kind of club?

The Nerva-Antonine tablet came from the ruins of the Temple of Antinous in Antinoöpolis.

In Justinian's Digest, what were the Roman rules on shared maritime losses called?

Lex Rhodia de iactu, the Rhodian law of jettison, held that goods thrown overboard to save a ship were paid for by everyone whose property was saved; it appears in the Digest issued in 533.

What kind of insurance did England's 1601 Act 'Concerning Matters of Assurances' regulate?

Marine insurance was the subject: the 1601 statute of Elizabeth I set up a special commission in London to hear disputes over policies on ships and cargoes, the first English law on insurance.

Which body, formally founded in 2012, succeeded the informal International Network of Insurance Associations?

The GFIA, the Global Federation of Insurance Associations, was set up in October 2012 to replace the informal International Network of Insurance Associations and give the industry a single voice to global regulators.