Page 10 - M1_Insurance Introduction Notes
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foundation, and so, in 1681, he created the first known
joint stock insurance company.
The economist Adam Smith praised insurance as a
rational invention and even a moral obligation. Not to
insure oneself he considered a “thoughtless rashness
and presumptuous contempt of the risk”.
Towards the end of the 18th century the first truly
modern and global insurance company, the Phoenix,
was founded by an association of sugar refinery owners
in London. Soon after its foundation it insured risks in
distant countries and it was the first insurer to
establish offices abroad.
And so it was from Britain that property and life
insurance started colonising the world, based on
modern science, new forms of capitalisation, and the
possibility to spread risks across the globe.
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