Don't try this if you aren't an Arab!!! Mad driving!

Insurance companies underwrite economic risks associated with illness, death, damage and other risks of loss. In return to collecting an insurance premium, insurance companies provide a contingent promise of economic protection in the case of loss. There are two main types of insurance companies: general insurance and life insurance. General insurance tends to be short-term, while life insurance is a longer-term contract, which terminates at the death of the insured. Both types of insurance, life and general, are available to all sectors of the community.Although insurance companies do not have banking licenses, in most countries insurance has a separate form of regulation specific to the insurance business and may well be covered by the same financial regulator that also covers banks. There have also been a number of instances where insurance companies and banks have merged thus creating insurance companies that do have banking licenses Contractual savings institutions (also called institutional investors) give individuals the opportunity to invest in collective investment vehicles (CIV) as a fiduciary rather than a principal role. Collective investment vehicles pool resources from individuals and firms into various financial instruments including equity, debt, and derivatives. Note that the individual holds equity in the CIV itself rather what the CIV invests in specifically. The two most popular examples of contractual savings institutions are pension funds and mutual funds. The two main types of mutual funds are open-end and closed-end funds. Open-end funds generate new investments by allowing the public to purchase new shares at any time, and shareholders can liquidate their holding by selling the shares back to the open-end fund at the net asset value. Closed-end funds issue a fixed number of shares in an IPO. In this case the shareholders capitalize on the value of their assets by selling their shares in a stock exchange. Mutual funds are usually distinguished by the nature of their investments. For example, some funds specialize in high risk, high return investments, while others focus on tax-exempt securities. There are also mutual funds specializing in speculative trading (i.e. hedge funds), a specific sector, or cross-border investments. Pension funds are mutual funds that limit the investor’s ability to access their investments until a certain date. In return, pension funds are granted large tax breaks in order to incentivize the working population to set aside a portion of their current income for a later date after they exit the labor force (retirement income).