Charlie said:
It originated a long time before Benjy. Traders in the Mediterranean used a form of insurance to indemnify the trader against loss if the cargo was stolen, and mutualised risk was used by Chinese traders (who would spread their cargos across many vessels to lower the total risk). The Greeks and Romans had "benevolent societies" which are similar to modern mutuals.
The idea of insurance goes back to at least the Old Babylonian period in the early second millennium BC. It's such an obvious idea that it wouldn't surprise me if it's even older than that.
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