In*sur"ance (?), n. [From Insure.]

1. The act of insuring, or assuring, against loss or damage by a contingent event; a contract whereby, for a stipulated consideration, called premium, one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by certain specified risks. Cf. Assurance, n., 6.

&fist; The person who undertakes to pay in case of loss is termed the insurer; the danger against which he undertakes, the risk; the person protected, the insured; the sum which he pays for the protection, the premium; and the contract itself, when reduced to form, the policy. Johnson's Cyc.

2. The premium paid for insuring property or life.

3. The sum for which life or property is insured.

4. A guaranty, security, or pledge; assurance. [Obs.]

The most acceptable insurance of the divine protection.

Mickle.

Accident insurance, insurance against pecuniary loss by reason of accident to the person. -- Endowment insurance or assurance, a combination of life insurance and investment such that if the person upon whose life a risk is taken dies before a certain specified time the insurance becomes due at once, and if he survives, it becomes due at the time specified. -- Fire insurance. See under Fire. -- Insurance broker, a broker or agent who effects insurance. -- Insurance company, a company or corporation whose business it is to insure against loss, damage, or death. -- Insurance policy, a certificate of insurance; the document containing the contract made by an insurance company with a person whose property or life is insured. -- Life insurance. See under Life.

INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player
is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating
the man who keeps the table.

INSURANCE AGENT: My dear sir, that is a fine house -- pray let me
insure it.
HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so
low that by the time when, according to the tables of your
actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have
paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.
INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no -- we could not afford to do that.
We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.
HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can I afford that?
INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time.
There was Smith's house, for example, which --
HOUSE OWNER: Spare me -- there were Brown's house, on the
contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which --
INSURANCE AGENT: Spare me!
HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay
you money on the supposition that something will occur
previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In
other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last
so long as you say that it will probably last.
INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it
will be a total loss.
HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon -- by your own actuary's tables I
shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I
would otherwise have paid to you -- amounting to more than the
face of the policy they would have bought. But suppose it to
burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are
based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were
insured?
INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our
luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your
loss.
HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their
losses? Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before
they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case
stands this way: you expect to take more money from your
clients than you pay to them, do you not?
INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not --
HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well
then. If it is certain, with reference to the whole body of
your clients, that they lose money on you it is probable,
with reference to any one of them, that he will. It is
these individual probabilities that make the aggregate
certainty.
INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it -- but look at the figures in
this pamph --
HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!
INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would
otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander
them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.
HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is
not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you
command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from a
Deserving Object.