History and Development P&C Insurance
Ankita Sharda
Senior Human Resource Executive || Hired for Adidas & KPMG (ex-clients) | MBA, Talent Acquisition- Corporate HR.
The last in the list of development is the accident insurance business, it is still an open branch in the sense that any new type of insurance that is not cared for under marine, fire, and life would fall under accident branch.
Therefore,
we see a number of various types of policies coming under accident department.
Examples are a personal accident, burglary, fidelity, workmen’s compensation, liability policies, engineering, erection all risk, cash in safe and transit, crop, cattle, bond, credit guarantee schemes, motor, aviation etc.
Accident insurance basically started from personal accident insurance. The effect of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, particularly the invention of steam power and railway, was responsible for numbers of accidental deaths and bodily injuries.
Some specialized insurance companies started operating in this field side by side with the existing companies doing fire, marine and life business.
With the increased demand from the public for protecting themselves against various other types of risks associated with rapid industrialization, gradually developed other types of business already indicated.
Common Features of Development
If we analyze the gradual development in the sphere of insurance, we shall come across certain common features associated with such development.
These are:
- Insurance developed basically in response to a demand created by the insuring community.
- The industrial revolution of the 19th century was largely responsible for rapid growth of the insurance business.
- In the early days, there was the absence of reliable statistical data and theoretical soundness. Gradually this vacuum was filled in by various theoretical approaches and concerted actions of various associations. This ultimately gave legal, technical, scientific and theoretical soundness to the business of insurance.
- In the earliest days, insurers started as specialist offices (i.e., doing one type of business only), but gradually with multifarious demands they turned into composite offices (i.e., doing more than one class of business).
- The idea as to the maintenance of a reserve for withstanding catastrophe losses gradually developed and now-days hardly there is a company which does not provide for such a reserve.
The necessity of reinsurance gradually developed with the increase in the insurer’s commitment to a particular risk.