One of the more popular queries that brings folks to AskDeb.com is “Who invented car insurance?”. We have a page on the subject here: Who Invented Car Insurance? I’m going to provide some additional commentary about the inventor of car insurance and the concept in this blog post.
In our feature article on the subject, we give credit to Herbert Stanley Morrison as the “inventor” of car insurance, because in 1930, he created the Road Traffic Act of 1930. This was the first law in the UK which required drivers to carry insurance on their vehicles. But that’s not exactly the same as who invented car insurance, is it? (And honestly, motor insurance existed some time before this, it just wasn’t a legal requirement to drive.) But in the USA, car insurance had been compulsory in Massachusetts as early as 1927.
But the concept of “car insurance” goes back a lot further than that. Car insurance is really just a specific kind of insurance on a vehicle, and even before there were cars, there were other kinds of vehicles. And people insured their vehicles a LONG time ago.
In ancient Babylon, 2000 years before Christ, the code of Hammurabi had provisions for how insurance of trading boats and ships would work. Strictly speaking, this would be considered “marine insurance”, but conceptually, it’s about the same as car insurance. So you might say that Hammurabi invented car insurance before there were cars.
I’ve also seen articles online stating that the first car insurance policy was actually written in 1898 by Dr. Truman J. Martin.
I don’t believe in car insurance being compulsory. I think it should be an option where you either take it and get covered in an accident or you don’t take it and don’t get covered. Simple – your choice. But oh no they’ve made it compulsory for everyone. The insurance premiums for young people are absolutely disgusting and to be honest if I had an accident I would rather get the damage sorted out myself which would probalby cost connsiderably less than the annual car insurance premiums for people my age and then let the owner of the vehicle who I had a collision with do their own thing.
Hey there. I really wanted to thank you for sharing your thoughts with your blog. After reading your blog, I would like to know some of your ideas about the latest earthquakes around the globe.