Insurance as Transfer Mechanism.

This paper views the typical insurance arrangement as a transfer mechanism. In addition to the primary ‘risk transfer’ by which insurance systems can he distinguished from other financial systems, the paper identifies three secondary transfers and four other transfers that the author views as associated with insurance but incidental to it. The paper then analyzes four different insurance systems in accordance with the transfers that take place within such system, and the relative importance of each to the particular system examined. The insurance systems subjected to this analysis are (1) automobile liability insurance, (2) group medical expense insurance, (3) the private pension plan, and (4) the OASDI social insurance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]