Mutual insurance society is the earliest insurance organization and the most primitive form of insurance organization. Each member provides insurance for other members, and each member also receives insurance provided by other members. Mutual insurance institutions are quite common in Europe and America, such as American brother institutions, British friendship institutions and shipowners' mutual insurance associations in marine insurance.

Compared with mutual insurance companies and insurance cooperatives, mutual insurance institutions have the following characteristics:

(1) Mutual insurance society members provide insurance protection to each other, which embodies the concept of "one for all, one for all".

(2) Mutual insurance companies have no share capital, and the premiums are shared afterwards, which is uncertain in advance. Working capital comes from membership fees paid by members. In mutual insurance companies, the funds and expenses required for compensation and management are shared by members, who pay the provisional share and management fee first, and then calculate and determine the share at the time of annual settlement, and then refund more and make up less.

(3) The highest management institution of mutual insurance institutions is the management committee elected by members. Under normal circumstances, the Committee appoints an agent with legal personality to preside over social affairs and handle all matters related to insurance and social finance.

(4) The business object of mutual insurance institutions is members. Mutual insurance institutions are not open to the outside world, and the organization scale is small, purely serving members.

2. Insurance cooperatives

An insurance cooperative is a mutual insurance organization organized and operated by some people with the same insurance needs. Insurance cooperatives are very similar to mutual insurance companies. Mutual insurance companies are usually established in the form of cooperatives, so some insurance scholars often substitute them for each other. In fact, there are differences between insurance cooperatives and mutual insurance companies.

(1) Mutual insurance institutions have no share capital; To join an insurance cooperative, members must pay a certain amount of share capital. In other words, members are shareholders of insurance cooperatives, and their rights are limited to the shares subscribed.

(2) The source of operating funds for mutual insurance companies is the share paid by members, and the insurance companies and members are combined for temporary purposes. If the insurance relationship is terminated, both parties will automatically terminate the contract. The funds of insurance cooperatives come from members' shares and loans from members or non-members. The establishment of insurance relations must be based on members, but members do not have to establish insurance relations, and the elimination of insurance relations will not affect the existence of membership relations. Therefore, the relationship between insurance cooperatives and their members is relatively long. As long as members subscribe for the share capital, they can still keep in touch with the insurance cooperative even if they don't use the services of the cooperative.

(3) The insurance premiums of mutual insurance companies are shared afterwards, not determined in advance according to actual needs and actual losses, while insurance cooperatives adopt a system of determining insurance premiums and will not pay them afterwards.

(4) The business scope of an insurance cooperative is limited to the members of the cooperative and only covers the risks of the members of the cooperative.

American blue cross and blue shield medical insurance organization is a non-profit medical insurance organization in the United States, and its business scope is in the state or community. Blue Cross will provide hospitalization insurance, and Blue Shield will provide out-of-hospital medical insurance. There are 70 such organizations in the United States, about 2/5 Americans are members of the Blue Cross, and13 Americans have participated in Blue Shield insurance. These two organizations are jointly provided with medical insurance by hospitals and cooperative insurance organizations.

American Health Care Group is a health insurance cooperative organization, also known as managed medical insurance organization, which provides comprehensive medical care services for its members. Although it is not as important as commercial life insurance companies and non-profit blue cross and blue shield organizations, it has developed rapidly since the 1970s.

Agricultural cooperatives in Japan are the most active cooperatives in handling life insurance in Japan. It is a mutual aid organization established by farmers' organizations according to the Agricultural Cooperation Law of the 22nd year of Showa (1947). The types of mutual aid organizations include building mutual aid, life insurance and damage insurance. Members sign mutual aid contracts with grass-roots cooperatives, and then the Federation of ministries, prefectures and counties provides reinsurance, and the Federation reinsurance the part exceeding the retention amount to the National Federation of Agricultural Mutual Cooperatives, that is, reinsurance. In fact, grass-roots cooperatives are not responsible for mutual assistance. The rates and terms are unified throughout the country, and most of the funds collected are deposited in the credit cooperatives of the agricultural cooperatives system or the central treasury of agriculture and forestry, or used to buy agricultural and forestry bonds and bonds issued by financial institutions.