Overview

Since the end of the eighteenth century, the insurance industry has cast a safety net around the world, first in the British Isles and then further afield, irrespective of cultural, political and ideological divides. Unlike previous publications on insurance history, which tend to discuss the development of national markets or individual companies, this book focuses on the creation of networks across borders from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day.Distinguished international economic historians draw upon examples from twenty countries across the continents to demonstrate how what was called the 'British system' of risk management spread out in waves, and describes the forces that made this possible - first among them migration from Europe and international trade. The book explores the economic, political, religious, and cultural obstacles that blocked the path of this European invention - not only religious law and traditional practices, but above all protectionism, inflation, and political ideologies. It examines the process of transformation through which modern insurance supplanted traditional forms of protection against perils and risks and was able to keep on offering new ways of dealing with the risks of modern life. As well as discussing primary insurance, it also considers the role played by reinsurance, without which the losses arising out of today's natural and man-made disasters would be immeasurably greater. Finally, taking modern-day disaster scenarios as examples, the book shows just what the limits of insurability are and what risks worldwide networks entail.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter Borscheid (Professor Emeritus of Economic and Social History at the Philipps-University of Marburg) ,  Niels Viggo Haueter (Corporate History, Swiss Reinsurance Company)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 18.20cm , Height: 4.60cm , Length: 25.30cm
Weight:   1.458kg
ISBN:  

9780199657964

ISBN 10:   0199657963
Pages:   752
Publication Date:   23 August 2012
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

1: Peter Borscheid: Introduction Part I. Europe 2: Peter Borscheid: Europe: Overview 3: Robin Pearson: United Kingdom: Pioneering insurance internationally 4: Peter Borscheid: Germany: Insurance, expansion and setbacks 5: André Straus: France: Insurance and the French financial networks 6: Martin Lengwiler: Switzerland: Insurance and the need to export 7: Giandomenico Piluso: Italy: Building on a long insurance heritage 8: Jerònia Pons Pons: Spain: International influence on the domestic insurance market 9: Yuri A. Petrov: Russia: Early expansion, state involvement, and re-emergence of the insurance industry Part II. North America 10: Peter Borscheid: North America: Overview 11: Matthias Kipping & James Darroch: Canada: Taking life insurance abroad 12: Christopher Kobrak: USA: The international attraction of the US insurance market Part III. Sub-Saharan Africa 13: Peter Borscheid: Sub-Saharan Africa: Overview 14: Grietjie Verhoef: South Africa: Leading African insurance Part IV. Middle East & Northern Africa 15: Peter Borscheid: Middle East & Northern Africa: Overview 16: Samir Saul: Maghreb: Naturalising insurance in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia 17: Frauke Heard-Bey: United Arab Emirates: Economic boom and insurance Part V. Far East and Pacific 18: Peter Borscheid: Far East and Pacific: Overview 19: G. Balachandran: India: From a colonial outpost to a leading market 20: David Faure & Elisabeth Köll: China: The indigenisation of insurance 21: Takau Yoneyama,: Japan: The role of insurance in the rapid modernisation of Japan 22: Myung Hwi Lee & Duol Kim: Korea: Insurance in a tiger market 23: Monica J. Keneley: Australia and New Zealand: A tradition continued creating a domestic insurance market Part VI. Latin America and Caribbean 24: Peter Borscheid: Latin America and Caribbean: Overview 25: Marcelo de Paiva Abreu & Felipe Tâmega Fernandes: Brazil: The resilience of the Brazilian insurance market 26: Gustavo del Angel: Mexico: A history of the insurance industry in Mexico 27: Yolanda Blasco & Rodrigo Rabetino: Argentina: The changing fortunes of the Argentinean insurance market

Reviews

For the first time, historians working across a range of subjects from finance and economic modernization to social welfare and even religion have access to a systematic account of how the insurance industry has transformed the risk environment faced by billions around the world and how that process has knit together the economies and fortunes of far flung societies and cultures ... Whether the post-2008 financial debacle will induce a return to a more stringent regulatory environment and a new generation of statist approaches to insurance is a question that must await a sequel to Borscheid and Haueters imposing and standard-setting World Insurance. EH.net

<br> In this thoroughly researched work, 26 contributors discuss how the demands of international trade required a worldwide safety net. The contributors show how the insurance industry expanded worldwide and navigated the world wars, the intervening economic depression, the Cold War, sporadic economic nationalism, and the recession of the early 1970s. The work explores the growth of the great insurance companies, including agencies, branches, subsidiaries, and joint ventures. All world regions are covered, as are issues affecting the industry such as protectionism, inflation, and competing political ideologies. Contributors also cover the impact of recent crises: the dot-com bust in 2000, the 9/11 attack, the hurricanes, and the subprime and banking crisis of 2008. Recommended. All collections and readership levels. --CHOICE<p><br>

Author Information

"Peter Borscheid is Professor Emeritus of Economic and Social History at the University of Marburg. He has published numerous monographs on the history of science and technology, the history of the textile industry, the standard of living, the history of old age, and old-age pension, the cultural history of acceleration. He led several projects and international working groups on insurance history. He also served as a member of the German government commission ""The situation of the older generation in the Federal Republic of Germany"". Niels Viggo Haueter is Head of Swiss Reinsurance Company's Corporate History team and the company's historical archives. He serves as an academic advisor on insurance and reinsurance history to the European Association for Banking and Financial History in Frankfurt."

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