underwriter

In insurance. The party who agrees to insure another on life or property, in a policy of insurance. He is also called the "insurer."

The party who agrees to insure another on life or property, in a policy of insurance. He is also called the insurer. The title is almost exclusively confined to insurers of marine risks, and is derived from the method of obtaining such insurance formerly in vogue, usually as follows: A premium having been agreed upon between the insured and an insurance broker, a statement of such premium and of the ship or cargo, and the voyage or time, was written at the head of a sheet which was laid on the broker’s table. Then such merchants as were willing to insure such property on such terms subscribed their names to the statement above mentioned, stating the amount they were willing to insure; and so on until the desired amount of insurance was obtained. 1 Pars. Mar. Ins. 14. The term is also used of bankers and other financial men who agree together to purchase an entire issue of bonds or other securities, usually at the end of a certain period. By reason of such underwriting, the bonds, etc., obtain a market value or a value as collateral security.

In the law of marine insurance, an insurer, so called from his underwriting or subscribing the policy. The term is constantly applied to insurers, whether corporations or private persons, but more properly to the latter, since the term was derived from the English practice, under which marine insurance is commonly undertaken by private persons, a certain number of whom usually sub-

When marine insurance was the only insurance known, a person soliciting a contract exhibited in writing, in a resort for meixhants or insurers, the particulars of his application, or sent the application to an insurance- broker. A person who was willing to take the risk wrote underneath the app Jication the sum, his name, residence, etc. Hence " underwrite " (and," underwriting ") came to mean to accept proposed contracts for insurance, to carry on the business of insuring against loss by storm, shipwreck, fire, etc. See Insurancb.

insurances, is one who signs a policy of insurance by which he becomes an insurer. By this act he places himself as to his responsibility in the place of the insured. He may cause a re-insurance (q. v.) to be made for his benefit; all just demands against him for losses. Marsh. Ins. 45.