Active Risk Retention :

Active risk retention means that an individual is consciously aware of the risk and deliberately plans to retain all or part of it. For example, a motorist may wish to retain the risk of a small collision loss by purchasing an own damage insurance policy with a Rs. 2,000 voluntary excess. A homeowner may retain a small part of the risk of damage to the house by purchasing a Householders policy with substantial voluntary excess. A business firm may deliberately retain the risk of petty thefts by employees, shoplifting, or the spoilage of perishable goods. Or a business firm may use risk retention in a self-insurance program, which is a special application of risk retention. In these cases, the individual or business firm makes a conscious decision to retain part or all of a given risk. Active risk retention is used for two major reasons. First, risk retention can save money. Insurance may not be purchased at all, or it may be purchased with voluntary excesses; either way, there is often a substantial saving in the cost of insurance. Second, the risk may be deliberately retained because commercial insurance is either unavailable or can be obtained only by the payment of prohibitive premiums. Some physicians, for example, practice medicine without professional liability insurance because they perceive the premiums to be inordinately high.