As you already know, the State of Arizona requires you to have car insurance before you’re allowed to drive your vehicle. Most, if not all, financial institutions require home insurance in order to give you a mortgage. Even if we wanted to skip the insurance (which none of us who know better would ever do, right?) we simply can’t. Insurance is wrapped up in our homes, cars, life, health, etc.

But where did it come from? How did we get to the point that we can’t (or at least shouldn’t) live without it?

Here are some fun things you may not know about the history of insurance:

-Chinese and Babylonians traders from the 2^nd and 3^rd millennium BC would distribute their goods to several vessels to minimize risk.

-The Code of Hummurabi was developed around 1750 BC by King Hummurabi and was meant to discharge the loan of traders/sailing merchants if their goods were stolen or lost.

-Rome was perhaps the first to use life insurance. Burial “clubs” would work together to pay funeral expenses and sometimes help families with payments after a death.

-In the 1600’s a man named Edward Lloyd came up with the idea for insurance after listening to several business man talk about their struggles in a coffee house. Lloyd’s of London is still in business today.

-It took over 100 years for insurance to take hold in America, possibly because of the large numbers of colonists that died and/or lost everything they had during the first few years.

-Benjamin Franklin played a key role in the insurance movement in the United States.

-In 1837, Massachusetts was the first state to require companies to carry enough money to cover damages.

Obviously this doesn’t cover everything leading up to the insurance policies/practices we use today, but aren’t those details kind of fun? Below you will find several links to sites where we researched this information.

The Insurance Movement has seen all kinds of milestones over the last few thousand years. At Arizona Capital Insurance (formerly OMNI Insurance), we are creating new milestones for insurance in the State of Arizona. You see, unlike the fun details we shared above, insurance is not really a fun topic. Paying for insurance makes us mad and then we scream and shout when we don’t get what we’re expecting from the insurance companies.

Our goal is to help you get the right policy at the right price. We want to change the way you view insurance (and insurance companies) forever. If you aren’t currently insured by us, take a minute to check out our site, then give us a call and see what we can do for you. You might find it a milestone in your insurance history.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance
http://insurance.kotak.com/omkm3/insuranceguide/originoflife.htm
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5106068_origin-insurance.html
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070202091824AAAcYvO