Property insurance provides protection against most risks to property, such as fire, theft and some weather damage. This includes specialized forms of insurance such as fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance, or boiler insurance. Property is insured in two main ways—open perils and named perils.
This tornado damage to an Illinois home would be covered as a typical named peril.
An 18th-century fire insurance contract
Attack on the World Trade Center
New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss.
An advertisement for a fire insurance company Norwich Union, showing the amount of assets in coverage and paid insurance (1910)
Merchants have sought methods to minimize risks since early times. Pictured, Governors of the Wine Merchant's Guild by Ferdinand Bol, c. 1680.
Leaflet promoting the National Insurance Act 1911
A wrecked vehicle in Copenhagen