Fundamentals of Risk and Insurance

Honestly, I was never really fascinated with insurance. My life-licensing class was 24 hours of classroom time spread out over one weekend, so maybe that has created some insurance-related intellectual scars. The sections on Life Insurance and the basic components of any insurance contract and the whole insurance process were already familiar to me, so I found those sections incredibly uninteresting. The other forms of insurance were much more interesting and gave me a great foundation for other insurance studies I've done since.

The prose of the book, too, flows extremely well. In fact, I usually just lightly read passages explaining computations and formulas because I come back later to review them in-depth; however, while reading this book, I actually felt I fully understood most of the computations even while I read (which almost never happens because most formula-explaining reads much like Kant's "Metaphysics of Morals").

Just one closing point... I guess you'd have to be either Insurance Commissioner or a professor of insurance to be really interested in this material, but the authors write in a way that allows even the average CFP or insurance student to come away from the book with a good sense of how insurance works and where it fits into an individual's financial plan.


Dreadful   November 15, 2007
Future CFP (Glastonbury, CT USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

My insurance class was unanimous in their disappointment with this textbook. Why?

1) VERBOSE - Takes twice as long to explain a concept as the concise authors in the Kaplan or Bisys book series. Also recommended is Principles of Risk Mgt. and Insurance by George Rejda (http://www.aw-bc.com/rejda/). I found out about these alternates mid-semester after it was too late to switch - don't get stuck like I did.
2) NO ONLINE QUIZZES OR POWERPOINT SUMMARY SLIDES - Kaplan, Bisys and George Rejda offer these helpful study aids.
3) POOR FORMATTING - definitions are not bolded, italicized or presented as bullet points; sample problems are incorporated within long paragraphs, rather than separated out; margins are razor thin on the top and sides, allowing no room for notes.
4) BIASED - The authors generously sprinkle the text with their obvious bias favoring the insurance industry, especially regarding health care coverage. New approaches to health care and access are characterized as "attacks" (p.369 & 382) and "crusades" (p.382); "Patients rarely object to more testing because it might do them some good, even if it is not cost effective for society as a whole." (p.367); and "the debate over availability and affordability is a thinly veiled demand for cross-subsidies in the insurance market." (p.114). That's just the tip of the iceberg.

If it was possible to give this book zero stars, I would. Whatever you do, don't buy the book new - it's so poorly written that my entire class is offloading theirs at the end of the fall 2007 semester, so it will be on Amazon soon.