INSURANCE: Transferring risk to others. The need for insurance occurs because people tend to be risk averse in many circumstances. As such, most of us are willing to pay for certainty. Those who satisfy this need for insurance, insurance companies for example, do so because they can pool risk. If insurance companies know the chance of some loss (an accident, illness, or whatever) and its cost, then they can divide this cost among a large group of risk averse types. The insurance company agrees to pay the cost of the loss and each of the risk averse types pay a risk premium, but get the peace of mind that goes with certainty.

     See also | risk | risk averse | risk premium | welfare | Social Security | unemployment compensation | taxes | market control | financial markets | risk loving | risk neutral |

INSURANCE, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2026. [Accessed: June 9, 2026].

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A curve that graphically represents the relation between average total cost incurred by a firm in the short-run product of a good or service and the quantity produced. The average total cost curve is constructed to capture the relation between average total cost and the level of output, holding other variables, like technology and resource prices, constant. The average total cost curve is one of three average curves. The other two are average variable cost curve and average fixed cost curve. A related curve is the marginal cost curve.

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