From: Thom Baguley (T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk)
Date: Thu 02 Dec 1993 - 14:31:03 EET
>From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
>___________________
>Colin Watson asked:
>> Do the Lunars have shipping insurance? I can see it being mighty popular.
>Last spring, Paul Reilly mooted that the decadent mercantile Carmanian
>nobility of the West Reaches had developed insurance as an outgrowth of
>gambling -- "ten to one against your ship sinking before it reaches shore."
>I quite liked this, though Lunar Carmania is outside my remit. So I'd say,
>yes. Plenty of ancient and modern insurance frauds to add to the deceit and
>corruption of the Evil Empire.
I seem to remember that insurance started somewhat differently on Earth. In Elizabethan times you would leave money with the insurer if you went on a dangerous journey. If you came back you would get four of five times your money. This would be more lucrative than insurance if travel was dangerous enough. (My source was Shakespeare's The Tempest).
Thom
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