Most people who have a family or dependents of some kind take measures to make sure that if anything happened to them, those dependents would still be looked after in financial terms.

For most of us that means taking out a life insurance policy that pays out a lump sum to whoever is named on it. Not only does this bring peace of mind to the dependents, it also brings peace of mind to the person who has arranged the policy.

But if you think that insuring your life to benefit your loved ones is a fairly modern idea, then you need to think again. In fact, the whole practice came about in Roman times, when groups of people created what were known as burial clubs. If you were a member of one of these clubs you would have paid a monthly amount to ensure that if you died, your funeral would be paid for in full by the club. It sounds more like the funeral plans we have now, but this was in fact the first proper type of life insurance that has been found in history.

A more recognisable form of life insurance began over three hundred years ago in England, which unusually was just about the only country in Europe that had it, as it was against the law in many other countries at the time.

The insurance policies that were drawn up at this time are very similar to the ones we see today, and while we should credit the ancient Romans for kick-starting the whole idea of insurance it is the people who lived in England in the late 1600s who are the true creators of what we know today.

The way in which business was done all those years ago was very different from how we would buy an insurance policy today however. It’s obvious that they didn’t have the luxury of the internet to use when trying to find a life insurance policy to suit them, but rather than meeting in a business premises they actually used to meet in coffee houses, one of which went by the name of Lloyd’s Coffee House.

It’s obvious that the idea of life insurance has come a long way from the idea that the Romans first came up with. Today there are several different types of policies available – such as over 50’s life insurance for example - and no matter how much cover you want or who you want to benefit from it, it doesn’t take long to arrange something.

And luckily you won’t need to sit in a coffee shop to arrange it now either!