This statue represents the insurance of a locomotive, as you would probably guess. However, the sculptor intended for the locomotive to represent a much broader type of insurance which, depending on where you live, may not even exist. Assurance.
Assurance v. Insurance
If you are wondering how Assurance is different from Insurance – I’ve spent my Sunday researching it for you (well, a few minutes :-). Assurance is protection or planning for significant events that will definitely happen. The perfect example of assurance is life insurance. Yes, most properly are still calling it life insurance, and not life assurance, and that’s confusing. Apparently the terms have become interchangeable over the years, and you can see why – the meanings of the two words are very close in scope.
Warranty v. Assurance
Notably, when I translated the statue’s name from its original Hungarian myself, Google translate gives me “Warranty.” This also makes sense – when you purchase a warranty for your television, you know your television will eventually stop working. Most modern warranties only cover a limited amount of the life of the television, say 1 or 2 years. However, if the warranty were longer, say for the life of the television, it would be Assurance because you know that television is going to fail at some point.
Basically, Assurance is like an unlimited Warranty for something you know will eventually fail because it is an unavoidable fact of life, whether that be a television, a car, or your body.
