Insurance is the act of being insured, or insuring, and a way of protecting yourself against loss and/or damages of some kind. There are many different types of insurance that will cover a person, their belongings and even pets. Insurance is provided, to ensure that people have recourse when something traumatic happens such as an accident, flood, fire, pet injury, or other difficult event. Insurance is not always mandatory, but can be very beneficial.
     When purchasing insurance, it is important to do some research and find out what type will best suit your personal needs. For instance, when looking at auto insurance your choices are property, liability and medical. The property coverage will pay for the theft of the car, or any damage to the car, the liability covers the legal responsibility for another party who is in control of the vehicle if theft or damage occurs, and the medical coverage will pay for injuries, any therapies deemed necessary, lost income, or in case of death, the funeral expenses. A person is not responsible for buying every form of auto coverage, but one must determine which one or combination of the three would be the wisest choice. Home insurance is available to protect and reimburse the homeowner when the house is damaged or destroyed by some disaster. Depending on the area in which a person resides, they might have the need to purchase additional insurance such as those that cover disasters like floods and earthquakes. When renting, there are usually policies that the renter can buy to protect their property in case of theft.
     Health insurance is often provided either by a person’s place of employment, or if that is not an option either for financial reasons or personal, is available for purchase privately, or can be provided by the government. Health insurance encompasses basic medical as well as vision and dental. Oftentimes the dental and vision have to be paid for separately, and are not usually included in the medical plan. Health insurance is not mandatory, but in places such as Canada and the UK the healthcare is all publicly funded and covers most of the medical treatments deemed necessary.
     Life insurance is a binding contract between an insurance company and the insured in which the insured pays a certain amount of money for a policy that ensures that in case of natural or accidental death, the beneficiary will receive the amount of the policy. Certain exclusions are generally written into the policy when the cause of death is such as; suicide, war or fraudulent schemes.
     A few other types of lesser known insurance are as follows; travel insurance which covers loss of property or injury when traveling, kidnap and ransom insurance, title insurance which is used during real estate transactions, pet insurance which pays for medical and/or burial costs when a pet is injured or killed, expatriate insurance, and closed community insurance, which is taken advantage of by communities such as the Amish and Mennonite to name a few, to provide for their people when hit by some type of disaster.