Insurance is an agreement where, for a stipulated payment called the premium, one party (the
insurer) agrees to pay to the other (the policyholder or his designated beneficiary) a defined
amount (the claim payment or benefit) upon the occurrence of a specific loss. This defined claim
payment amount can be a fixed amount or can reimburse all or a part of the loss that occurred.
The insurer considers the losses expected for the insurance pool and the potential for variation in
order to charge premiums that, in total, will be sufficient to cover all of the projected claim
payments for the insurance pool. The premium charged to each of the pool participants is that
participant’s share of the total premium for the pool. Each premium may be adjusted to reflect any special characteristics of the particular policy. As will be seen in the next section, the larger the
policy pool, the more predictable its results.
Normally, only a small percentage of policyholders suffer losses. Their losses are paid out of the
premiums collected from the pool of policyholders. Thus, the entire pool compensates the
unfortunate few. Each policyholder exchanges an unknown loss for the payment of a known
premium.
Under the formal arrangement, the party agreeing to make the claim payments is the insurance
company or the insurer. The pool participant is the policyholder. The payments that the
policyholder makes to the insurer are premiums. The insurance contract is the policy. The risk of
any unanticipated losses is transferred from the policyholder to the insurer who has the right to
specify the rules and conditions for participating in the insurance pool.
