Martin Shaw: Mutual agreement

At its heart, insurance is about problem-solving: protect my income if I can't work; replace my mobile phone if I lose it; save for my retirement; even helping the earth cope with the implications of climate change. Insurance people have a reputation of being staid and conservative, but actually they are risk-takers, innovators and have a better track record of predicting the future than any of Russell Grant, Nostradamus or often the Bank of England. Lloyd's coffee shop in London in the late seventeenth century lays proper claim to the early emergence of insurance as an industry. But ...