America turns 250. Its greatest innovation wasn’t the car or the computer — it was learning to share risk

The United States was not built on ambition alone. It was built on a willingness to share risk. “We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” This is the closing line of the Declaration of Independence — a clear and deliberate commitment to distribute risk, not merely a symbolic sign-off. This principle is easy to overlook in how we tell the story of American progress — a story more often centered on independence, innovation, and individual ambition. But these qualities depend on something more foundational: the ability to distribute risk so that failure does not stop progress. As an American, and as the CEO of a global insurance and reinsurance company, I see that principle at work every day. Our role is straightforward. We provide financial resilience that allows people and businesses to act with confidence, and to recover and rebuild when things don’t go according to plan. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, there will be no shortage of reflection on what the country has built. I tend to focus more on what made that progress possible. Risk-Sharing Built America Before Anyone Called It That Across every chapter of American development, one constant stands out: meaningful progress has required both a willingness to take risk and systems capable of absorbing it. In colonial cities like Philadelphia, property owners pooled resources to cover fire losses and began inspecting buildings to reduce exposure. In doing so, they didn’t just protect assets — they helped establish the foundations of modern building standards and safer cities. Merchants underwriting transatlantic voyages spread the risk of early global trade. The model, refined in places like Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse in London, allowed commerce to expand beyond what any single balance sheet could sustain. That principle still underpins the modern economy. Today, global trade has reached $33 trillion and more than 80% of those