New Delhi, Sept. 28 -- The Code of Hammurabi, a 1750 BCE Mesopotamian edict in cuneiform, means many things to many people. Some people see it as the first stirrings of a legal text drafted to protect the weak and vulnerable from the strong and powerful. Others find an early form of insurance in it.

Insurance, as a financial product designed to provide a safety net against risks of all kinds, has come a long way. From Babylon (today's Iraq) to European coffee houses via the Roman empire, it settled in a London cafe called Lloyds, where underwriters would meet to trade their risks, before it went global.

Insurance has since become a complex instrument drafted in a language that only a few can decipher. It has also spawned its share of in...