| 释义 |
insurance|ɪnˈʃʊərəns|
[Variant of ensurance, with change of prefix as in insure.]
†1. The action or a means, of ensuring or making certain: = ensurance 1. Obs.
1660Willsford Scales Comm. Ded. A iij, The acceptance of my former Labours hath given me faire hopes of an Insurance for these. 1678N. Homes in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. cxliv. 15 To have God to be our Jehovah is the insurance of happiness to us. a1788Mickle Inq. Bramin Philos. (R.), An offering grateful to their gods, as the most acceptable insurance of the divine protection.
†2. = assurance 3. Obs. rare.
1706Farquhar Recruit. Officer ii. i, Silv. Shall I venture to believe public report? Plume. You may, when 'tis backed by private insurance.
†3. Betrothal, affiance, troth-plighting, engagement to marry: = ensurance 2. Obs.
a1553Udall Royster D. iv. vi. (Arb.) 70 Dyd not I knowe afore of the insurance Betweene Gawyn Goodlucke, and Christian Custance?
4. Comm.
a. The act or system of insuring property, life, etc.; a contract by which the one party (usually a company or corporation) undertakes, in consideration of a payment (called a premium) proportioned to the nature of the risk contemplated, to secure the other against pecuniary loss, by payment of a sum of money in the event of destruction of or damage to property (as by disaster at sea, fire, or other accident), or of the death or disablement of a person; the department of business which deals with such contracts. Also called assurance (and in 17th c. sometimes ensurance).
Assurance is the earlier term, used alike of marine and life insurance before the end of 16th c. Its general application is retained in the titles and policies of some long-established companies (e.g. the London Assurance Corporation). Insurance (in 17th c. also ensurance) occurs first in reference to fire (1635 in insure v. 4), but soon became coextensive with assurance, the two terms being synonymous in Magens 1755 (see assurance 5). Assurance would probably have dropped out of use (as it has almost done in U.S), but that Babbage in 1826 (see quot.) proposed to restrict insurance to risks to property, and assurance to life insurance. This has been followed so far that assurance is now rarely used of marine, fire, or accident insurance, and is retained in Great Britain in the nomenclature and use of the majority of life insurance companies. But in general popular use, insurance is the prevalent term. Mr. T. B. Sprague, followed by others, considers assurance, assure, assurer, etc., the proper words for the action of the company or persons undertaking the risk, insurance, insure, insurer, etc., for that of the person paying the premium. This would be in some respects a useful distinction, if it could be carried out; but it would leave the members of mutual societies at once assurers and insurers.
1651[see sense 5]. 1663Pepys Diary 1 Dec., Money was taken up upon bottomary and insurance, and the ship left by the master and seamen upon rocks where..she must perish. 1665Manley Grotius' Low C. Warres 80 The Covenant of preventing Danger (commonly called Insurance) frequent among Merchants, added a Shadow of Law; whereby the incertainty of the Event is usually transferred to another, with some certain Reward. 1693E. Halley in Phil. Trans. XVII. 602 By what has been said, the Price of Insurance upon Lives ought to be regulated. 1711Act 10 Anne c. 26 (title) An Act for laying additional Duties on Hides and Skins..Gilt and Silver Wire, and Policies of Insurance. Ibid. §68 Any writing commonly called a Policy of Assurance or Insurance. 1755N. Magens (title) Essay on Insurances. Ibid. I. 12 On June the 1st he sent aboard Ten Bales marked M, No. 1 to 10, which cost One Thousand Pounds; and on that Day he had Insurance done to that Value under the general expression of Merchandize. 1786Jefferson Writ. (1859) II. 26 Making further inquiry as to the premium of insurance at L'Orient for vessels bound to or from America. 1817W. Selwyn Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4) II. 869 A policy of insurance is the instrument in which the terms of this agreement are set forth. 1826Babbage Assur. of Lives Pref. note, The terms insurance and assurance have been used indiscriminately for contracts relative to life, fire, and shipping; as custom has rather more frequently employed the latter term for those relative to life, I have in this volume entirely restricted the word assurance to that sense. If this distinction be admitted assurance will signify a contract dependent on the duration of life, which must either happen or fail; and insurance will mean a contract relating to any other uncertain event which may partly happen or partly fail. 1848Arnould Mar. Insur. (1866) I. i. i. 3 Marine Insurance..in its essential nature is a contract of indemnity. 1853A. Farr in Reg. General's 12th Rept. Appendix p. xvii, The phrase ‘Life Insurance’ is in every respect preferable to ‘Life Assurance’. 1872Wharton's Law Lex. s.v., The practice of marine insurance is older than insurance against fire and upon lives. While all fire and life insurances are made at the risk of companies..a large proportion of marine insurances is made at the risk of individuals called under⁓writers. 1893Relton Fire Insur. Companies 6 It having been decided that the Court [created by 43 Eliz. c. 12] had no jurisdiction in the case of Life Insurances, it is evident that it could not have had any in the case of Fire Insurances, which..did not exist in Great Britain when the Act was passed.
b. The sum paid for insuring; the premium.
1666Lond. Gaz. No. 100/3 The Insurance upon our Convoy to the Levant is very high. 1806Hutton Course Math. I. 127 To find the insurance on 107l, for 117 days, at 43/4 per cent. per annum. 1833H. Martineau Loom & Lugger i. i. 12 Upon the payment of an insurance of ten per cent. Mod. His Insurance falls due this month.
c. The sum to be recovered in case of the occurrence of the contingency; the amount for which property or life is insured.
1838De Morgan Ess. Probab. 227 The present value of such an insurance as the preceding.
†d. Short for insurance-office. Obs. rare.
1722De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 54 One Stewart..kept a wager-office and insurance.
e. The act or system of insuring employed persons against sickness or unemployment, esp. in accordance with the National Insurance Acts of 1911, 1920, 1946, and 1965, which require certain wage-earners to make weekly payments supplemented by their employers, in return for which they are entitled to State assistance in sickness, unemployment, etc.
1878, etc. [see National Insurance s.v. national a. 5]. 1911Times 28 Mar. 10/3 The preparation of the Sickness and Invalidity Insurance Bill. Ibid. 5 May 14/3 If he had divided his bill into two—one dealing with unemployment and one with invalidity insurance. Ibid. 14/5 The burden imposed by State insurance must necessarily fall on manufacturers. 1911Act 1 & 2 Geo. V c. 55. 337 National Health Insurance. 1912[see sense 5]. 1920Act 10 & 11 Geo. V c. 30 §48 (1) This act may be cited as the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920.
5. attrib. and Comb. (in sense 4 a), as insurance adjuster, insurance agency, insurance agent, insurance broker, insurance commissioner, insurance company, insurance man, insurance office, insurance officer, insurance policy, insurance premium, insurance rate; (sense 4 e) insurance act, insurance benefit, insurance card, insurance committee, insurance stamp.
1651Culpepper Astrol. Judgem. Dis. (1658) 176 When the matter..remains still within the lungs..there's but little security of life: and I am confident never a one of the Colledge keeps an insurance office for such a businesse, nor will ensure thereupon at 50 per cent. 1680(title) (Br. Mus. 816 m. 10. / 67 ) An advertisement from the Insurance Office for houses at the Backside of the Royal Exchange. 1755Insurance premium [see assurance 5]. a1776R. James Diss. Fevers (1778) 24 An insurance broker, in Castle Alley, near the Royal Exchange. 1781Cowper Friendship 106 Like Hand-in-Hand insurance plates, Most unavoidably creates The thought of conflagration. 1784in H. M. Brooks Days of Spinning-Wheel in New Eng. (1886) 62 The Gentlemen forming this Insurance Company, whose names are inserted in each Policy. 1841–4Emerson Ess., Self-Reliance Wks. (Bohn) I. 36 The insurance-office increases the number of accidents. 1866C. N. Emerson Internal Revenue Guide 73 Insurance agents shall pay ten dollars. 1869‘Mark Twain’ Innoc. Abr. xxxviii. 409 If her [sc. Smyrna's] ‘crown of life’ had been an insurance policy, she would have had an opportunity to collect on it. 1874B. F. Taylor World on Wheels, etc. ii. ii. 199 He was an insurance agent—a retired doctor, who growing weary of saving lives with pills, had taken to insuring lives with policies. 1879Harper's Mag. July 215 The insurance men..would insure the lives of the hands who were at work there. 1881Instructions to Census Clerks (1885) 83 Insurance Company's officer, manager, actuary, secretary,..clerk. 1883‘Mark Twain’ Life on Mississippi xliii. 436 Insurance-agency business, you know; mighty irregular. 1889Cent. Dict., Insurance commissioner, in some of the United States, a State officer who in behalf of the public maintains a supervision over the affairs of insurance companies. 1896Allbutt's Syst. Med. I. 484 The rapid, nervous, palpitating ‘insurance heart’, so constantly observed among candidates for life assurance. 1899Westm. Gaz. 11 Apr. 2/2 To determine whether we cannot agree together to reduce our respective insurance-rates. 1911Act 1 & 2 Geo. V c. 55 §15 The regulations made by the Insurance Commissioners. Ibid., The Insurance Committee for each county or county borough. Ibid. §115 This Act may be cited as the National Insurance Act, 1911. 1912Chemist & Druggist LXXX. 950/2 Cards and stamps for health insurance under the National Insurance Act are now procurable at post offices. 1912Punch 31 July 99/3 Mr. Masterman has laid it down that it is the wife's duty, and not that of the husband, to lick the servants' insurance stamps. 1913Ibid. 15 Jan. 49/1 As the 15th of January approaches, bringing fulfilment of 9d. for 4d. through operation of Insurance Act. Ibid. 13 Aug. 148/3 Somebody come to see about an insurance card or something. 1915W. Owen Let. 22 June (1967) 189 Am feeling quite independent of Insurance Policies just now. 1923D. H. Lawrence Birds, Beasts, & Flowers 86 Ah Phoenix, Phoenix, John's Eagle! You are only known to us now as the badge of an insurance Company. 1926Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage 741/1 The injustice of throwing on the landlord in whose house they happen to be resident the cost of a large additional insurance benefit for those who are sick. 1929J. B. Priestley Good Companions i. i. 32 He..threw an insurance card and some money on the table. 1930Morning Post 7 Aug. 11 The employers at four factories agreed to take upon themselves the charge of the insurance stamp which the men refuse to pay. 1933Insurance agent [see confidence n. 10]. 1933Radio Times 14 Apr. 98/1 Meltonian Cream..is..an insurance policy for shoes. 1934Insurance adjuster [see adjuster]. 1945N. L. McClung Stream runs Fast xii. 99 But one day, an insurance man, hearing that Wes had sold his drug store came out to offer him an agency, and Wes became an agent for the Manufacturers' Life Insurance Company. 1958Listener 23 Oct. 634/2 The insurance officer denied that this was an industrial accident. 1961Ibid. 10 Aug. 219/2 An insurance adjuster who also acts as a private detective. 1972J. Gores Dead Skip (1973) xiv. 101 Harvey E. Wyman was red-faced and jovial... He was also, unlike so many small insurance agents Ballard had met, very smart. 1973W. McCarthy Detail i. 56 You should check the people you choose more carefully... They must also have special diets. Just an insurance policy. |