There’s something that most people don’t talk about, don’t think about, and when the end comes it snaps right around and hits them square in the face. Their homes and cars remain unprotected, and there’s nothing to save them when the hammers come down.
National Insurance Awareness Day reminds you that taking the time to talk to an insurance agent and get a policy on your life, car, or home can save you and your family at the worst times the future holds.
How to Celebrate National Insurance Awareness Day
Chat with an Insurance Agent
The best way to celebrate the auspicious National Insurance Awareness Day is to get in and talk to an insurance agent that can discuss all the various types of insurance that can protect you and your family. Car insurance ensures that when your vehicle gets crumpled in a wreck, it can easily put you back on the road and able to get to work.
Supplemental insurance (like the one advertised by that duck) makes sure that injuries and the like are covered, and home insurance protects you (even if you rent) from the damages of fire and accident. These are just the tip of the iceberg!
Learn About Insurance
There are so many different insurance policies available today that it can be a little bit overwhelming. That’s half of the problem! For example, did you know that a company based in London has sold more than 30,000 alien abduction policies throughout Europe? In order to make a claim, you need to prove the presence of an alien in your vicinity.
There are many celebrities and famous people who have insured parts of their bodies as well. For example, Julia Roberts insured her smile for $30 million! You can have a lot of fun reading about all of the crazy insurance policies that have been taken out over the years, so if you’re looking for something to do on National Insurance Awareness Day, you can do a bit of digging online for some weird and wonderful stories.
Speak with an Expert
Of course, the point that we were making is that there are just so many different types of insurance plans, and you’re not going to need them all. That’s why speaking with an expert is important. You can understand what sort of insurance you need for your situation. Speak to someone who is unbiased and is not going to try and sway you in the direction of a specific product.
Review Your Policies
If you already have all of the insurance plans that you need, make sure you still set a bit of time aside to review your insurance policies on National Insurance Awareness Day. You will need to make sure that your plans still provide you with the right level of coverage. It may be that you need to make a few tweaks to your policy.
Share Information
It is also a good idea to use National Insurance Awareness Day to raise awareness. While you may have all of your insurance policies nailed down, your loved ones may be unprotected. So, why not share some information on social media with your friends, family, and followers to make sure that they are aware of the importance of insurance and having the right policies in place?
Learn About National Insurance Awareness Day
National Insurance Awareness Day has been created in order to encourage people to go over their insurance plan on this day. Insurance offers security in many different situations. It can recover losses and protect loved ones in the event of death, illness, or damage.
While it offers protection, the value of the items and properties we have can appreciate over time and our situations can change. An insurance policy that offered you excellent protection give years ago may not offer such great protection today. This is why it is important for people to review their insurance plans on a periodic basis.
The trouble is that it is very easy to forget about this. After all, there are so many other things to think about! That’s why National Insurance Awareness Day was created; to ensure that people are reminded to go over their insurance plans on this date. It also presents a great opportunity for people to learn about insurance in general and the different policies that are available.
History of National Insurance Awareness Day
Insurance is an incredibly interesting topic, especially when you realize just how old this form of protection really is. We had thought it wasn’t any older than a couple of hundred years, but we couldn’t be more wrong. It actually has a history stretching back far into the past, with the earliest known versions of it being found in 3000-2000 BC.
Insurance has been around so long it’s even found inscribed on the Code of Hammurabi, the first written laws. Imagine that! It even predated what was considered the official foundation of law, that’s some history.
Insurance, as we think of it in the modern age, came into existence sometime around the Great Fire of London, where the devastation that took place brought about the idea of property insurance. While insurance had up to this point had been considered some kind of convenience, it was now clear to the inhabitants of London that insurance was something that could protect a family fortune, and indeed an entire estate in the event of a disaster.
From there sprang all the forms of insurance we know today, including underwriting ventures in the event of failure (common in the age of sailing ships and questionable seas), to car insurance and life insurance. National Insurance Awareness Day celebrates the history and necessity of this fantastic invention, and encourages people to understand the important role it can play in their lives.
National Insurance Awareness Day Facts
Ancient Maritime Loans Functioned Like Early Insurance
In ancient Mesopotamia and later Greek and Roman trade, merchants used “bottomry” loans in which a lender financed a sea voyage but forgave the debt if the ship was lost, and charged a higher rate if it returned safely.
Historians and the Library of Congress note that this arrangement effectively transferred shipping risk from the merchant to the lender and is widely viewed as a precursor to modern marine insurance.
The Code of Hammurabi Included a Form of Risk Sharing
The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, dated to around 1750 BC, contains provisions that allowed traders to cancel certain debts if a shipment was lost at sea, a rule scholars interpret as one of the earliest documented attempts to spread commercial risk.
Modern risk and insurance historians point to these clauses as primitive insurance mechanisms that limited individual losses from trade disasters.
The Great Fire of London Catalyzed Modern Property Insurance
When the Great Fire of London destroyed thousands of buildings in 1666, it revealed how vulnerable homeowners and businesses were to catastrophic loss.
In the aftermath, entrepreneurs established some of the first dedicated fire insurance offices in London, and property owners began buying coverage tied to fire marks on their buildings, a development many historians regard as the birth of modern property insurance.
Edmond Halley’s Mortality Table Helped Make Life Insurance Scientific
In 1693, astronomer Edmond Halley used records from the city of Breslau to construct one of the first mortality tables that showed how the probability of death changes with age.
His paper in the Philosophical Transactions demonstrated how to calculate fair prices for life annuities, laying a mathematical foundation that later allowed life insurance companies to price policies using actuarial science rather than guesswork.
Underinsurance Is Recognized as a Widespread Social Problem
Industry research on mature economies has found that many households carry far less coverage than they would need to withstand serious shocks, particularly in life and non‑life segments such as disability and property insurance.
A 2019 MAPFRE Economics report describes underinsurance as a “social problem worldwide,” highlighting how gaps in coverage can undermine financial resilience even in high‑income countries.
Insurance Literacy Strongly Influences Whether People Are Covered
A 2023 study in Financial Research Letters examining survey data on individuals’ knowledge of insurance concepts found that higher “insurance literacy” significantly increases both the likelihood of owning any insurance and the number of policies held, even after controlling for income and education.
The authors conclude that understanding terms like deductibles and coverage limits is a key driver of real‑world protection.
Behavioral Biases Help Explain Why People Stay Underinsured
Reviews of behavioral economics and insurance decisions show that people systematically procrastinate on coverage decisions, stick with outdated default policies, and underestimate low‑probability but high‑impact events such as disasters or serious illness.
A 2024 report for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners notes that present bias, optimism bias, and difficulty understanding probabilities all contribute to underinsurance, even when policies are reasonably priced.
