The UK Insurance Industry—Structure and Performance

Abstract

The earliest insurance to be written in the UK was marine insurance, which was introduced into England in the 14th or 15th centuries by the Lombards from northern Italy. Alongside this early development of marine insurance came the earliest life insurance policies, the very first of which is thought to have been written in the late 16th century on the life of a merchant sailing with his goods. Fire insurance in the UK started a little later, with the first policy probably being written by the Phoenix Insurance Company (originally named the Fire Office) in 1680, just fourteen years after the Great Fire of London in September, 1666. The Great Fire destroyed much of medieval London and was an important stepping-stone in the development of fire insurance and organized fire fighting. In June 1861, the great Tooley Street fire occurred in the London docks, destroying warehouses, wharves, shops, offices and even ships. After paying out a total of about �2 million, insurance offices not surprisingly began to impose more restrictive terms on warehouses and wharves and to apply differential rates to encourage owners to think about fire precautions.