Insurance, Trade, and War

The role of insurance, as an instance of trade in war, is a curious phenomenon. It allows for the creation of a sense of certainty that enables the operation of some core businesses and trade under conditions of radical uncertainty where destruction and defeat, with the consequent loss of life and capital, are a possibility. For the study of international relations, the relationship between insurance and war highlights one of the most outstanding, if normally invisible, conditions for global trade: the interaction between sovereignty and risk. In this chapter, such relationship is analysed under the term ‘insurantial sovereignty’, a phenomenon which allows for the understanding of why insurance has been so prominent in Western power's capacity to wage war in the modern period.