Ahmet Celebiler says:

Two distinguished academician have spent an incredible amount of time and energy and thought to prepare and publish a book to replace all books on the subject. Unfortunately their failure resulted in a nightmare for students who are forced to read this book and base their ideas, values and knowledge of risk management and insurance on this book.

If I had had the misfortune of having this book as a text in a class, I would never have chosen my profession in risk management and insurance. If I had to use this book as the text of my course, I would refuse to teach risk management and Insurance in Undergraduate or Graduate classes.

The authors achieve partial success only in relation to the first of their four major objectives. The book is a detriment to good decision making in real conditions, definitely does not enhance the ability of the reader to think critically and analytically, and is totally useless in explaining how insurance markets perform.

After totally memorizing this book you can be an academician and get the new students to memorize the book again, in a vicious circle. It is impossible for the reader who is not already a professional to discern what is important and what is significant among the plethora of useful and totally unnecessary information.

There are no real life cases. There are no real people, there is not even a mention of psychology, perception, behaviour, culture, education, attitude.

The insurance companies and the reinsurance companies and all the agents and the brokers and the loss adjusters, salvage companies, etc. are just there. Why they are there, and what makes them tick is not important. Everyone is totally aware of their risks and all the alternative methods of loss control, transfer and retention. They all live in a totally defined sterile environment where all the players are logical and try for the optimum with full knowledge of their total legal, fiscal, geographical, mechanical, technical and economic and administrative environment. And, no one has a social or psychological environment.

Anyone who has studied this subject with this text book would have been totally flabbergasted with the recent crises, the previous Lloyds scandals, the price fixing of the major brokers and reinsurers, the many tricks of the insureds, and the terrible decision making of both insurers and insureds on issues of risk and insurance management.

It is as if this book negates the gamut of the NGOs related to risk management and insurance, and requires that all risk and insurance professionals become mathematicians and statisticians, some of whom would not know what to do if questioned by Marilyn Vos Savant in relation to the probabilities of the car or the goat behind the door.

I am sorry that I was unable to write with the “Principle of Good Will” in mind, but that is totally lacking in the book as well.

Unless you hate your students, do not use this as “The” text book. And if you want to motivate your employees to understand more about risk and risk management or insurance, do not give them this book in a corporate setting.
Rating: 1 / 5

Yushuang He says:

I bought this book because of school needs, it is a little pricy, but brand new and nice. I would try to use those paper back ones next time, see how is the difference
Rating: 4 / 5