It is a generally acknowledged phenomenon that there are enormous risks in every sphere of life. For property, there are fire risks; for shipment of goods, there are perils of sea; for human life, there are risks of death or disability; and so on. The chances of occurrences of the events causing losses are quite uncertain because these may or may not take place. In other words, our life and property are not safe and there is always a risk of losing it. A simple way to cover this risk of loss money-wise is to get life and property insured. In this business, people facing common risks come together and make their small contributions to the common fund. While it may not be possible to tell in advance, which person will suffer the losses, it is possible to work out how many persons on an average out of the group may suffer the losses.

When risk occurs, the loss is made good out of the common fund. In this way, each and everyone share the risk. In fact, insurance companies bear risk in return for a payment of premium, which is calculated on the likelihood of loss.

Insurance- Meaning and definition

Insurance is a contract between two parties. One party is the insured and the other party is the insurer. Insured is the person whose life or property is insured with the insurer. That is, the person whose risks are insured is called insured. Insurer is the insurance company to whom risk is transferred by the insured. That is, the person who insures the risk of insured is called insurer. Thus insurance is a contract between insurer and insured. It is a contract in which the insurance company undertakes to indemnify the insured on the happening of certain event for a payment of consideration. It is a contract between the insurer and insured under which the insurer undertakes to compensate the insured for the loss arising from the risk insured against. Some definitions of insurance are given below:

insurance may be defined as a co-operative form of distributing a certain risk over a group of persons who are exposed to it

Gosh and Agarwal

Insurance is a process in which uncertainties are made certain

Mc Gill

Insurance is a plan wherein persons collectively share the losses of risks

Jon Megi