I hope you’ve all finished reading the assigned chapter on insurance so that you’re prepared for our discussion today. But, before we start, I’d like to mention a few things your text doesn’t go into. It’s interesting to note that insurance has existed in some form for a very long time. The earliest insurance policies were what we called bottomry contracts. They provided shipping protection for merchants as far back as 3000 B.C. In general, the contracts were often no more than verbal agreements. They granted loans to merchants with the understanding that if a particular shipment of goods was lost at sea, the loan didn’t have to be repaid. Interest on the loans varied according to how risky it was to transport the goods. During periods of heavy piracy at sea, for example, the amount of interest and the cost of the policy went up considerably. So, you can see how insurance helped encourage international trade. Even the most cautious merchants became willing to risk shipping their goods over long distances, not to mention in hazardous weather conditions when they had this kind of protection available. Generally speaking, the basic form of an insurance policy has been pretty much the same since the Middle Ages. There are four points that were salient then and remain paramount in all policies today. These were outlined in chapter six and will serve as the basis for the rest of today’s discussion. Can anyone tell me what one of those points might be?

【生词摘录】

1. insurance: n. [U]an arrangement with a company in which you pay them money each year and they pay the costs if anything bad happens to you, such as an illness or an accident 保险;the money that you pay regularly to an insurance company 保险费;the business of providing insurance 保险业
2. bottomry: n. 船舶抵押契约(如船舶损失,则债务取消),冒险借贷
3. contract: n. [C]a formal written agreement between two or more people,which says what each person must do for the other 契约;合同
4. loan: n. [C]an amount of money that you borrow from a bank etc (银行等的)贷款
5. understanding:n.[Cusuallysingular]aprivate,unofficialagreement(私底下、非正式的)协议,协定
6. interest: n. [U]a charge made for borrowing money(借贷的)利息[+on]
7. piracy: n. the crime of attacking and stealing from ships at sea 海上抢劫,海盗行为
8. cautious: adj. careful to avoid danger or risks 小心的,谨慎的,慎重的
9. hazardous: adj. 危险的
10. salient: adj. formal the salient points or features of something are the most important or most noticeable parts of it 【正式】显著的,突出的
11. paramount: adj. more important than anything else 至高无上的,最重要的