By: Tarun Prakash Srivastava, Sr. Executive Editor-ICN Group
Do you know that the idea of insurance has been present in our human civilization since ancient times?
During the preparation of the case, I thoroughly examined all trade and income-expenditure accounts of Yugant, and I was shocked. In a moment, the reason for the present adverse situation of Yugant’s family was revealed. During his lifetime, Yugant created a very good income, but he had always seen golden dreams of the future and had never predicted the uncertain tragedy of future. Yugant had made several plans and he had the initial investment on them, but the success of those future schemes was never safeguarded, and consequently, all of his futures plans also died on his death and his family, swinging in the cradle, came suddenly on the road. You might have understood – I am talking about future security, i.e., insurance.
I represented Yugant’s family in said litigation without any charge and finally, Yugant’s family got a flat in that multiunit multi-storey building and Twenty Lac rupees in a shape of cash as the share of Yugant in his family property and now, Yugant’s family is living in the same flat today and his wife and older son have restarted the old business of Yugant in a new way and small children have again entered into good schools but in the old family picture of the Yugant and present picture, there is a big difference. Do you know what the difference is? Today his family is financially safer than ever before, because I have attached every of their future financial plans to insurance.
Whatever happened with Yugant, it can happen to all of us as the future of all of us is as uncertain as the future of Yugant. The episode of Yugant’s family gives us the lesson, and if we could not learn it timely, our life is going to teach us such a lesson to which our families will have to pay seriously.
I think that this is the right time to talk to you about certain aspects of the security of your plans and to understand some important things.
Do you know that the idea of insurance has been present in our human civilization since ancient times? In ancient times, there was an unwritten but extremely strong contract between the families living in developing communities that if the house of any of them were destroyed for a natural disaster or any reason, the rest of the members of the community would make a new home for that family or If a family could not hunt to eat for any reason, then the remaining families of the community would arrange food for that family by providing partial food from their food. Not only this, the families of such communities used to store partial cereals by an oral agreement among them so that all families could be safe in the event of famine or any other natural disaster. This was the initial form of insurance that we know today as ‘pooling’.
Two-three centuries BC also, we find the details of a special type of insurance in the civilizations of China and Babylon, through which the merchants used to enter into “pooling” to avoid the possibility of hundred percent harm to any of them and to save the loss of their goods by the dangers of marine assignments. If there were any harm to a merchant’s goods, all traders would have divided that loss. Details have also been received, whereby all traders who send their goods to trade in remote countries through marine routes, created a fund by contributing money in the proportion of their invested capital so that if there was any harm to any of the merchant’s consignment, that loss can be limited.
Another form of insurance was popular among traders in ancient Persia. There the merchants used to obtain loans from Moneylenders, and paid their special installments in addition to the normal installments of the loan, due to which, on the loss or destruction of the ship in the sea or theft of their shipments, the obligation of payment was exhausted.
Did you know that initial life and health insurance was existing 600 years before Christ in the Greek and Roman Empire and in the later times, it became popular in Jews and members of the developing civilizations and they used to form a fund based on mutual contribution, and its objective was to provide the expenses of the last rites of the deceased and the maintenance of the lives of the members of the deceased’s family.
In the intermediate era, in the fourteenth century in Geneva, there is also a mention of the practice of “pooling” by many landowners in the sense of a cooperative business of their land, through which each landlord could secure his loss even to a certain extent.
Tarun Prakash Srivastava
From my book ‘Science of Money’ available on Amazon.com in English at http://bit.ly/Science-Of-Money
