The development of society is marked by the effort and effort of people for their own prosperity and for their own defense against events that may endanger their existence and becoming.
People's lives are not always serene. No matter how much care is taken to avoid problems or to protect property, no one can be sure of success. Some negative events (natural disasters, accidents, loss of or loss of work due to illness or old age) involve mental trauma or significant financial loss.
However, people want to enjoy their own homes, to drive their own cars, to fly, to sail without fear of potential problems. Insurance arose from the need to protect people from dangers and to find appropriate solutions to remove them.
The oldest forms of insurance are still in antiquity and date back about 6,500 years. The stone-cutting craftsmen of Lower Egypt formed a self-help fund, formed in advance, by the contribution of all to cover the damage caused by various misfortunes that befell the members of the community.
In the year 650 BC, in ancient Greece, the wise legislator Solon forced political and craft societies to set up a monthly fund funded by monthly dues to repair the damage done within the group. It is the first compulsory insurance that in Babylon, Phenicia and other ancient countries, the members of the caravans became associations, jointly bearing the damage of robberies and other nature suffered by some of them during transport.
In ancient Rome, a burial association was established on the basis of a Regulation of the Lavinium Funeral College, which operated on the basis of registration fees and periodic payments. The members of the association were thus provided with a fire and a grave upon their death.
Some forms of property insurance have been known since the slave order, in various forms. Thus, the losses resulting from throwing overboard the cargo to save the endangered expedition (caused by shipwreck, storm, failure, etc.) were distributed proportionally, being borne by all participants in the expedition, on the principle of common damage. These principles have been enshrined in the maritime law of Rhodes since 916 BC and are maintained to this day. They were coded in the York-Antwerp rules collection developed in 1890 and modified in 1924 and 1950.
Other documentary sources give us other aspects of the history of insurance, so the oldest mutual associations were reported in the twelfth century in Iceland, one in 20 households that covered, on the principle of reciprocity, the damage from animal losses. The first maritime insurance operations appeared in Italian ports in the 14th century.
A form of insurance was the system of granting life annuities, called tontine, which appeared in France in the seventeenth century and then spread to the Netherlands, England and Germany. The system was based on the principle of life insurance but the participants received instead of the amounts insured life annuities.
In 1678 Wilhelm Leibnitz drew up a plan to set up a fire and water insurance house, the operation of which was based on the payment of annual dues. Hail insurance was first introduced in Scotland in the late 18th century.
In 1832, Albert Masius founded Leipzig, the first large German cattle insurance company, based on the principle of mutuality.
The development of rail passenger traffic led to the emergence in England of the first insurance company specializing in this field in the mid-nineteenth century.
Maritime insurance and fire risk insurance were marked by the establishment in Trieste, in 1822, of the company Assienda Assiguratrice, a company that also operated in Romania after 1830.
Liability insurance was introduced and practiced for the first time in France and covered the damage caused by horse and carriage owners. The insurance also extended to the liability of factory owners for damages caused to employees or third parties.
In the United States, the insurance industry was dominated by British insurance companies. In 1852, on the initiative of Benjamin Franklin, the Philadelphia Contributionship was established. Elizur Wright set up several American insurance companies and advocated for state control of insurance companies;