Insurance: Its Products, Services and Business Operations

Cathy Hampson and Gustavo Ortega

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we look at the financial-services sector of insurance, what it offers as products and services and how it operates. Insurance underpins all of industry and people’s lives, protecting buildings, people and items, in the case of damage or loss. Therefore, it is a vital part of the financial sector; without insurance people might not take some of the investment risks that they do, and society would therefore be poorer in terms of goods and services produced and the associated jobs.

The types of insurance that people and businesses require and the types available should be aligned, but not always. Sometimes, customised packages are required or, instead of typical outright insurance, products might be purchased from financial services firms, such as banks, in order to achieve the same effect. An example is the purchase of credit default swaps, which are a form of insurance against the credit defaults of other companies.

Price differentiation is not possible or lawful in some industries but, in the insurance company, it is both lawful and necessary; we will, in this chapter, look specifically at gender price differentiation and understand how recent