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The History of Travel Insurance

It oftentimes seems that the existence of travel insurance could not be more than a hundred or so years old. After all, there were not that many car owners before 1900, and there were not many people who traveled overseas. The fact is that insurance, general and travel, has been around for thousands of years. Trip and travel insurance has changed a lot over the years.

The concept of trip insurance is that a person pays a small amount of money to a specific institution in return for protection of financial loss should some undesired event take place while on a trip. This includes the traveler getting sick overseas, the traveler being a victim of a crime as well as many other circumstances that could take place.

The first insurance policies were signed thousands of years before the Common Era and involved merchants from Mesopotamian paying operators of caravans to protect their goods from being stolen or damaged. This was basically trip insurance for their luggage. Later, in 1750 BCE, the first maritime insurance was created. This provided insurance against the loss of hull and was protection against the loss of cargo.

Queen Elizabeth I gave the rights to build an insurance office to Richard Chandler in 1574. Later in 1601, legislation recognized the Assurances Act which basically stated that losses on ships or loss of the ships should be protected with insurance.

Benjamin Franklin began the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire during the years of the industrial revolution.

In the United States, James Batterson opened the world’s very first insurance agency for travel in April, 1864. It was called The Traveler’s Insurance Company. The goal of the company was to give traveler’s insurance against theft and accidents while traveling. Since then, the insurance industry for travel has gone through many changes, and today there are many more risks in which a traveler can take out an insurance policy for travel.

Health travel insurance is important because medical expenses are very costly today. Many people found themselves in debt because they had no insurance for traveling. If they went on a sporting holiday with many risks involved, it was dangerous to go without insurance. If a person was caught in a blizzard on a ski slope while traveling and their ski lessons got cancelled, they could recoup their money for lessons paid for if they had insurance.