Insurance

Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of potential financial loss. Ideally, insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a potential loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a reasonable fee. In practice, however, the business of providing insurance protection often ends up in litigation between the parties involved, while the responsibilities of regulating insurance markets routinely winds up as a political football for government agencies. In general, it is contract in which one party agrees to pay for another party's financial loss resulting from a specified event.

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• Hank Greenberg told his board of directors, "you can't even spell 'insurance'"http://editor.slate.msn.com/default.aspx/id/2116167/nav/ais/ ((hearsay, April 2005)