ECONOMICS REPORT - Insurance, Part 2

ECONOMICS REPORT - Insurance, Part 2
By Mario Ritter

Broadcast: Friday, March 18, 2005

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Economics Report.

As we discussed last week, insurance provides financial protection. Property was the first thing that people insured. Insurance can limit the cost to replace property that is damaged or destroyed.

Now what if someone is injured on someone else's property, but the property is O.K.? The owner may have to pay the medical costs. In that case, there is liability insurance to help pay for such claims.

A person's life can be insured too. One traditional form of life insurance is term life. It pays only if the policyholder dies before a set age. A term life policy can be renewed, but at a higher price.

Whole life insurance costs more. It also pays if a person dies. But whole life policies gain value as savings¹ over time. The policyholder can borrow against this value in the form of a loan.

When people buy life insurance, the insurer invests the payments in bonds, stocks and other financial products.

The Insurance Information Institute in New York says traditional life insurance is still an important part of the industry. But it says the main business now is in annuities².

Annuities are contract agreements that guarantee payments in the future, generally when a person retires. These payments may be fixed³. Or the amount may change with the value of investments.

Besides life insurance, there is health insurance which pays for medical costs if a person is sick or injured. The Insurance Information Institute says private insurers pay for about forty percent of all health care costs in the United States.

Medicare is federal health insurance for people age sixty-five and older. Medicaid is federal and state health insurance for the poor.

Workers in the United States who are injured on the job can receive workers compensation. States require employers to pay into this form of insurance. And workers who lose their jobs may collect unemployment insurance, for up to twenty-six weeks.

Modern insurance started in England in the late sixteen hundreds. Businesses shared the risks of international shipping⁴.

The insurance industry uses actuaries. These workers try to estimate the probability that some event will happen that will lead to a claim. Almost anything can be insured, so long as some insurer is willing to take the risk to insure it.

This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter. This is Gwen Outen.

1 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

2 annuities   

n.养老金；年金( annuity的名词复数 )；（每年的）养老金；年金保险；年金保险投资

参考例句：

• Many companies in this country grant their old employees annuities after they retire. 这个国家的许多公司在老年雇员退休后发给他们养老年金。 来自辞典例句
• Can I interest you in one of our Easter Annuities or IRA accounts? 您对我们的复活节年金保险或者个人退休金帐户有兴趣吗？ 来自电影对白

3 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

4 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。