A Brief History of Car Insurance

When you buy a car, you need to get insurance for it. It’s as simple as that. You would be breaking the law if you didn’t and yet no one ever really thinks about a time when there was no such thing as car insurance.

So how long ago did it first come about?

Its origins lie with the ancient Chinese – long before the modern car was even thought of. They used to insure their ships against anything that may happen to jeopardise the vessel or the cargo that was on it.

When the modern motor car came along it would be some years before car insurance was required for it. The car first appeared as the 19th century turned into the 20th century, but since very few people could afford to buy one, they were considered something of a luxury at first. Insurance wasn’t even thought of.

Perhaps unbelievably, the First World War would have to take place before any thought of insurance came about. As the 1920s got underway, more and more cars were starting to find their way onto Britain’s roads.

Now whenever you buy something new, it takes you some time to get used to how to use it. The situation was no different when the motor car first arrived en masse. As you might expect, this led to more than a few accidents starting to happen.

Most people know that there are some forms of insurance that are required by law, and some that are optional. This is how car insurance was to begin with. Policies were created and offered for sale when all these accidents started happening, but they didn’t become a legal requirement until around 1930.

In short, it took some three decades for car insurance as we know it now to come into force. The situation was much the same in many other parts of the world too. In America the requirement for car insurance came into force three years earlier than it did in the UK.

Modern times have seen other changes to the insurance that is offered. Back in the early days a car insurance policy would be exactly the same no matter who you bought it from. Now you can get quotations from lots of different companies and then choose the one you like the most.

Car insurance has certainly come a long way since it was first made a requirement more than seven decades ago. Many car insurance companies are now available to give instant quotes online. That would have seemed unimaginable to people who lived during the 30s and had one of the earliest motor cars of all!

It has developed a lot over the years, but it still has the same purpose it had right at the beginning. It’s good to know some things do stay the same.