History of Life Insurance In India

Indians have been a prudent lot for millenia and risk mitigation has taxed the Indian mind from ancient times. The works of Manu ( Manusmrithi ), Yagnavalkya (Dharmasastra ) and Kautilya ( Arthasastra ) talk about the pooling of resources that could be re-distributed in times of calamities such as fire, floods, epidemics and famine. This is  a pre-cursor to modern day insurance which is based on the law of large numbers and pooling of risk.

Life insurance in modern India evolved by drawing heavily from developments in other countries,especially England.

In 1818 the Oriental Life Insurance Company was established by Europeans in Calcutta. However,the company was short-lived and by 1834 the company had failed.Then in 1829, the Madras Equitable begun transacting life insurance business in the Madras Presidency. Read more of this post