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Published
Jan 1, 2023Page count
208 pagesISBN
978-1529221350Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Jan 1, 2023Page count
208 pagesISBN
978-1529221367Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
Dealing in Uncertainty
Insurance is an important – if still poorly understood – mechanism for dealing with a broad variety of risks associated with modern life.
This book conducts an in-depth examination of one of the largest and longest-established private insurance industries in Europe: British life insurance. In doing so, it draws on over 40 oral history interviews to trace how the sector is changed since the 1970s, a period characterised by rampant financialisation and neoliberalisation.
Combining insights from science and technology studies and economic sociology, this is an unprecedented study of the evolution of insurance practices and an invaluable contribution to our understanding of financial capitalism.
Arjen van der Heide is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University. He previously obtained his PhD at the University of Edinburgh and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne.
Introduction
Theory and analysis
PART One : SHIFTING BOUNDARIES
How life insurance arrangements have changed
How actuaries came to reconsider the nature of financial uncertainty
A ‘perfect storm’ for the British life insurance industry
PART Two: APPROPRIATING MODELS
The process of appropriation
Risk models and their impact on the professional ecology
PART Three: CONSOLIDATING PRACTICE
The institutionalisation of knowledge machinery in European regulation
How insurers’ business models were reoriented
Conclusion
