A financial instrument that allows people to transfer risk to someone else, insurance is a way to reduce the impact of accidental losses. Individuals and businesses pay a small known fee—referred to as a premium—to professional insurers who will then provide them with the funds necessary to cover any costs associated with a large loss. Property and casualty insurance helps cover the cost of repairs or replacement to a person’s or company’s assets, while life and health insurance help compensate for loss of life or illness.
An underlying principle of insurance is that it pools small amounts of money from many individuals and businesses together to pay out big claims. The large numbers of individuals paying small premiums make it possible for insurance companies to predict probable losses and thus determine how much they should charge each insured person or business for their policy. The premium payments are then invested so that if the insured experience any large losses they can be covered by the pool of other insureds’ payments. This ‘transfer of risk’ is what makes insurance work.
There are certain risks that can’t be insured, however. For example, it’s impossible to insure against the possibility of winning a lottery jackpot. Insurers also avoid insuring against speculative or financial (betting) risks because the probability of them occurring is unknown and therefore not predictable.
Typically, an insurer will ask for some basic information from the insured through a phone call, online form, or chatbot. This process is called underwriting, and it can take the insurer anywhere from a few seconds to a day or more to crunch all of the numbers and come back with a quote for the insurance policy. The amount the insurer charges is based on several factors, including the insured’s credit history, past claims history, age, location, and more.
Once the policy is purchased, if the insured incurs a loss that is covered by their policy, they must file a claim with the insurer to be paid out. The insurer may have specific guidelines for filing a claim that are laid out in the policy. The insured must then wait to receive their payment from the insurer.
One important thing to remember is that while an insured is paying for a service that they hope to never use, it’s still worth having because the potential consequences of going without insurance can be catastrophic. For example, if you own a car and get into a bad crash, then the expenses that can pile up from repairing your vehicle and those of the third parties involved could easily exceed your savings and put you in debt. This is why it’s important to have the right coverage in place.
The most difficult part of having insurance is that you’re essentially paying for something that you hope you’ll never have to use. This can be hard for many people, but skipping coverage leaves you vulnerable to huge financial losses if the unthinkable happens. Assurance perpignan