Insurance \In*sur"ance\, n. [From Insure.]

1. The act of insuring, or assuring, against loss or damage by a contingent event; a contract whereby, for a stipulated consideration, called premium, one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by certain specified risks. Cf. Assurance, n., 6.

Note: The person who undertakes to pay in case of loss is termed the insurer; the danger against which he undertakes, the risk; the person protected, the insured; the sum which he pays for the protection, the premium; and the contract itself, when reduced to form, the policy. --Johnson's Cyc.

2. The premium paid for insuring property or life.

3. The sum for which life or property is insured.

4. A guaranty, security, or pledge; assurance. [Obs.]

The most acceptable insurance of the divine protection. --Mickle.

Accident insurance, insurance against pecuniary loss by reason of accident to the person.

Endowment insurance or assurance, a combination of life insurance and investment such that if the person upon whose life a risk is taken dies before a certain specified time the insurance becomes due at once, and if he survives, it becomes due at the time specified.

Fire insurance. See under Fire.

Insurance broker, a broker or agent who effects insurance.

Insurance company, a company or corporation whose business it is to insure against loss, damage, or death.

Insurance policy, a certificate of insurance; the document containing the contract made by an insurance company with a person whose property or life is insured.

Life insurance. See under Life.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Life buoy. See Buoy.

Life car, a water-tight boat or box, traveling on a line from a wrecked vessel to the shore. In it persons are hauled through the waves and surf.

Life drop, a drop of vital blood. --Byron.

Life estate (Law), an estate which is held during the term of some certain person's life, but does not pass by inheritance.

Life everlasting (Bot.), a plant with white or yellow persistent scales about the heads of the flowers, as Antennaria, and Gnaphalium; cudweed.

Life of an execution (Law), the period when an execution is in force, or before it expires.

Life guard. (Mil.) See under Guard.

Life insurance, the act or system of insuring against death; a contract by which the insurer undertakes, in consideration of the payment of a premium (usually at stated periods), to pay a stipulated sum in the event of the death of the insured or of a third person in whose life the insured has an interest.

Life interest, an estate or interest which lasts during one's life, or the life of another person, but does not pass by inheritance.

Life land (Law), land held by lease for the term of a life or lives.

Life line.
   (a) (Naut.) A line along any part of a vessel for the security of sailors.
   (b) A line attached to a life boat, or to any life saving apparatus, to be grasped by a person in the water.

Life rate, the rate of premium for insuring a life.

Life rent, the rent of a life estate; rent or property to which one is entitled during one's life.

Life school, a school for artists in which they model, paint, or draw from living models.

Life table, a table showing the probability of life at different ages.

To lose one's life, to die.

To seek the life of, to seek to kill.

To the life, so as closely to resemble the living person or the subject; as, the portrait was drawn to the life.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)