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Meditations on Insurance and Society 5: Understanding Life Forwards

Published on 21 August 2023

Welcome to Insurance Covered summer special miniseries Meditations on Insurance and Society.

Normally on this podcast Peter is joined by a guest to discuss an aspect of the wonderful world of insurance. But, this August, we are doing something different. Instead of our normal fortnightly podcast, we are releasing an 8 episode mini series focusing on the role that insurance has played throughout history in shaping society. They will incorporate a bit of history, a bit of philosophy, some psychology, a lot of insurance and… who knows what else.

In part five we look at:

  • How insurers calculate future risk
  • How insurance seeks to identify 'monsters in the fog'
  • The opening of the worlds first life assurance fund in 1744
  • The use of mortality rates to calculate risk of death
  • Early applications of probability theory
  • The change on life assurance policies that required purchasers to have an insurable interest in the individual.

We hope you enjoy the first of our summer special series and will follow along with new episodes releasing every Monday and Thursday throughout August.

Regular episodes will resume in September. 

*Please note the below podcast will not run on Internet Explorer

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