Justin Duncan, age 13, of Lake Charles, La., for his question:
WHERE WAS INSURANCE FIRST ISSUED?
Insurance can be traced back to biblical days. Joseph believed that a great seven year famine would strike Egypt. He ordered that grain be stored during seven years of good crops to relieve shortages that he felt would develop during the famine. This was a form of insurance.
Another early form of insurance can be found in the Babylonian laws of 1700 B.C. A borrower did not have to repay a debt if personal misfortunes made payment impossible. He paid extra for this protection in addition to the interest charges.
Life insurance goes back to ancient Roman times. Special organizations provided old age pensions, disability insurance and even money for burials.
Marine insurance developed at a coffeehouse called Lloyd's in London in the late 1600s. The idea of underwriting, or guaranteeing, was a new technique. A statement of a ship's cargo was recorded on a slip of paper. Persons willing to share the risk of insuring the cargo would sign their names under the statement. Each person indicated the share he would underwrite or guarantee against loss.
In the 1700s a scientific basis was developed for determining life insurance rates. The British astronomer Edmund Halley prepared the first mortality table, showing the death rate over a year's time for each age group.
Then a little later, the Frenchman Blaise Pascal, along with his countryman Pierre de Fermat, developed a theory of probability. Today's life insurance industry is based on the mortality table and the probability theory.
Modern fire insurance started with Nicolas Baron, who opened the first fire insurance office in London after the Great Fire in 1666.
Benjamin Franklin started the first fire and life insurance companies in the American colonies. Franklin's organization started in Philadelphia in 1752, 237 years ago.
The first successful life insurance company, called the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance office, was founded in England in 1705.
The first U.S. mutual life insurance company, the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, was founded in 1835 while the first insurance company in Canada, the Canada Life Assurance Company, started in 1847.
In 1863 the first accident policy in the U.S. was sold by the Travelers Insurance Company. It covered a man named James Bolton during a two block walk from his home to the Hartford, Conn., post office. The premium for this policy was 2 cents.
Industrial life insurance was introduced in the U.S. in 1875. The first automobile insurance became available in 1897.