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==Insurance in Mesopotamia==
[[File:P1050763_Louvre_code_Hammurabi_face_rwk.jpg|thumbnail|Code of Hammurabiis one of the earliest documents that describes the system of bottomry, where owners would borrow money and return it with interest to lenders. This was a form of insurance to protect cargo for the owners.]]
The earliest documented evidence for insurance derives from Mesopotamia, including the northern and southern regions. Insurance likely develops by the 3rd millennium BC, but most of our earliest texts about early forms of insurance derive from the early 2nd millennium (around 1800 BC). In this case, bottomry (Figure 1), a system where the owner of cargo would borrow money and pay that money back after the safe arrival of the cargo, was developed.<ref> For more information on bottomry and how it developed, see: Thoyts, Rob. 2010. ''Insurance Theory and Practice''. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge.</ref> The system may have been utilized by ship merchants mostly or even adopted for trade caravans consisting of donkeys or pack animals. In the case of shipping, if a ship reached its destination, then the loan taken for the shipment would be given back with interest.
By the mid first millennium BC, in the 5th century BC, during the time of Achaemenid Persian rule of Babylonian (i.e., southern Mesopotamia), the Murashu banking firm and family also seems to be involved in issuing insurance to their customers.<ref>For information about the Murashu family and their involvement in providing insurance to their clients, see: Hillprecht, Hermann Vollrat. 2013. ''Business Documents of Murashu Sons of Nippur Dated in the Reign of Artaxerxes I (464-424 B.C.)''. Nabu Press.</ref> This firm is among the earliest known private corporations that is named and their involvement in insurance makes them among the earliest known insurance companies anywhere.
==Insurance in China==
