Our 3rd Vodcast episode comes to you live from the Lloyds of London Building in London. At Quantum Financial we find insurance absolutely fascinating. So we seek to share the interesting things about insurance with our wonderful clients.

History & types of life insurance
[Investing Insights Vodcast Ep3] Live from the Lloyds of London building in London

This striking building I’m now inside was designed by Lord Rogers and opened by the Queen in 1986.

The modern life insurance industry has its origins in a London coffee house established over 330 years ago by Edward Lloyd.

He set up his coffee house in 1688 near the River Thames and sailors, merchants and ship owners would meet here and share shipping news. This was 30 years after coffee was introduced in the UK and only 22 years after a Great Fire of 1666 destroyed much of London. As a direct result of the Great Fire, property insurance was created. So remember that next time you insure your home or car.

Over time Lloyds Coffee House in London became the place to buy maritime insurance, especially if your ship was in the slave trade for which Lloyds had a global monopoly for insuring.

Lloyds has never been a company as we know it. Rather, it is comprised of a lot of syndicates (99 at last count) who operate in over 200 countries structured like a mutual organisation. In it’s history it insured the supposedly unsinkable ship the Titanic for $1m and paid out over a $1 billion in today’s terms for the terrible 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

5 years after Lloyds was founded, a mathematician in London named Edmond Halley created the first life table, crucial for life insurance. His invention gave birth to actuarial studies. You may have heard of the comet named after him whose return Halley predicted every 75 od years.

18 years after Lloyds was founded, another London company, The Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office, offered the world’s very first life insurance policy.

This market evolved over the centuries and today there are 6 types of life insurance you should be aware of in Australia:

Life insurance which pays a lump sum on your death or the diagnosis of a terminal illness. It’s better described as death cover but that sounds a bit morbid.

Total and Permanent Disability Insurance which pays a lump sum if you become disabled and are unable to ever work again.

Income protection insurance which replaces up to 75% of your current income if you are unable to work due to illness or injury.

Trauma Insurance or critical illness insurance which pays a lump sum on the diagnosis or occurrence of one of a list of specific illnesses such as heart attack, cancer or stroke.

Business Expenses Insurance which covers the ongoing costs of your business if you are self employed and cannot work due to illness or injury.

Key person insurance which covers the losses incurred when a person essential to the success of your business is injured, becomes sick or dies.

If you have any insurance queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at Quantum Financial. Now back to the busy streets of London.