Assurance

While insurance protects a person from the financial risk of an uncertain or possible event, assurance indemnifies a person against an eventuality. For this reason, those insurance policies dealing with life contingencies are referred to as assurance, for example: life assurance and health assurance, as the perils that affect these are eventual.

The line can also be drawn between those policies that assure an individual (and his or her life) as opposed to those policies that insure possessions. This forms the distinction between insurance companies and life offices (or assurance companies).