Insurance: how the sector works
how insurance works: pooling and pricing risk, the underwriting-claims cycle, life vs P&C vs health, reserves and reinsurance, and float.
This block builds structural fluency in insurance as an industry: how risk is underwritten, pooled, priced, and paid out across life, P&C, and health lines. You will map the value chain from distribution through underwriting, reinsurance, and claims, identify who holds power among insurers, reinsurers, brokers, and regulators, and see where margin actually concentrates. You will learn the regulatory architecture (solvency regimes, market conduct rules, capital requirements) that shapes every commercial decision. Finally, you will anchor your knowledge in the numbers that matter: market sizes, loss ratios, combined ratios, and the acronyms practitioners use daily. Together these modules give you the working vocabulary and judgment to operate credibly in insurance conversations from day one.
What you'll master
- Map the end-to-end insurance value chain and explain how risk flows from policyholder to reinsurer
- Identify the major players in the sector and assess where bargaining power and margin sit across the chain
- Interpret core regulatory requirements (solvency, conduct, capital) and their practical impact on business decisions
- Use standard industry benchmarks and ratios to quickly assess an insurer's performance and market position