Insurance

Risk is the possibility of loss to scarce resources. Risk management, is the practice of appraising and controlling risk, and has evolved as a discrete field of study and practice, primarily in the area of four risk management techniques. These are risk avoidance, risk prevention, risk retention, and risk transfer, the latter of which is also known as insurance. Thus, in law and economics, insurance is a risk management technique primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss that may be suffered by those individuals or entities who have an insurable interest in scarce resources, by transferring the possibility of this loss from one interested person, persons, or entity to another. The scarce resources referred to here fall into three divisions: human resources, financial resources, and capital, or tangible resources. In the context of insurance, scarce resources are also known as "exposures," because they are "exposed" to perils, those things, or forces, which cause destruction or reduction, in the usefulness, or value, of an exposed resource. Human resources are thus exposed to perils such as illness or death; financial resources to legal judements that may result from negligent acts, and capital resources to physical perils such as fire, theft, windstorm, and vandalism, to name but a few. A hazard is the cause of a peril. It is that thing or condition which increases the liklihood of a peril. Thus perils and hazards are identified by the exposure that they threaten. For example a slippery roadway could be viewed as a financial hazard, capital hazard, or human hazard by automobile owners, and rightly so, since this condition increases the liklihood of an automobile accident that might result in an unfavorable legal judgement, automobile damage, and bodily injury.
In the context of commercial trade, insurance is further defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for consideration, payment, in the form of a risk premium. The insurance premium develops at an actuarily-determined rate. This rate is a factor used to determine the amount of premium to charge for a certain limit, and type, of insurance on the scarce resource. The premium can further be viewed as a guaranteed, known, relatively small financial loss to the insured, paid to the insurer, in exchange for the insurer's promise to compensate (indemnify) the insured in the case of a loss to the insured resource(s). The insured receives a contract, called the insurance policy, which details the conditions and circumstances under which the insured will be indemnified.

History of insurance

Main article:

In the late 19th century, "accident insurance" began to be available, which operated much like modern disability insurance.This payment model continued until the start of the 20th century in some jurisdictions (like California), where all laws regulating health insurance actually referred to disability insurance.
Accident insurance was first offered in the United States by the Franklin Health Assurance Company of Massachusetts. This firm, founded in 1850, offered insurance against injuries arising from railroad and steamboat accidents. Sixty organizations were offering accident insurance in the U.S. by 1866, but the industry consolidated rapidly soon thereafter. While there were earlier experiments, the origins of sickness coverage in the U.S. effectively date from 1890. The first employer-sponsored group disability policy was issued in 1911.
Before the development of medical expense insurance, patients were expected to pay health care costs under what is known as the business model. During the middle to late 20th century, traditional disability insurance evolved into modern health insurance programs. Today, most comprehensive private health insurance programs cover the cost of routine, preventive, and emergency health care procedures, and most prescription drugs, but this is not always the case.
Hospital and medical expense policies were introduced during the first half of the 20th century. During the 1920s, individual hospitals began offering services to individuals on a pre-paid basis, eventually leading to the development of  organizations. The predecessors of today's (HMOs) originated beginning in 1929, through the 1930s and on during world war