World Insurance: The Evolution of a Global Risk Network, is the first truly global and comprehensive history of insurance. 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.

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.

Readership: Academics, researchers, and graduate students in Business, Economics, History; insurance industry practitioners, companies, associations, and regulatory bodies

Edited by: Peter Borscheid and Niels Viggo Haueter

• 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.

ISBN: 9780199657964

Publishers: Oxford University Press 23 August 2012

Format: Hardback, 752 pages | 246x171mm

CONTENTS:

1. 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: Dr Monica J. Keneley, Associate Professor in Finance, the School of Accounting Economics and Finance, Deakin University Victoria, Australia.: 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