Worlds Oldest Insurance Company And The First Automobile Insured
Truth is always strange; stranger than fiction
, wrote Lord Byron and his words are certainly true when we consider the first insurance company. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, the government passed laws to try and prevent another such disaster. There had to be fire buckets and ladders at various points around London. And a successful doctor, Nicholas Barbon, noted that his investments were mainly in the London re-building and thus in real estate and if another Great Fire came along, his wealth would be destroyed overnight.Barbon, whose original name was Hath Christ Not Died for Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned Barebone, persuaded some colleagues to create the first insurance company which was named The Insurance Office. They insured houses and other buildings and formed their own fire brigade. Real estate owners who took out a policy with The Insurance Office had a plaque prominently displayed and in the event of a fire, only those buildings which were insured would receive the attention of the fire brigade.
When fires grew into a common place scenario municipal fire brigades were formed. More insurance companies were created and many still gave bonuses to firemen who saved a property the company insured. Naturally because it saved the insurers having to pay up!
The Insurance Office eventually went out of business but one of its rivals which opened for business in 1710 is still in operation today and is known as the Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Company.
Now if the British or more precisely the English were the first to create insurance cover of any type and in this case for real estate, the Americans were the first to create car insurance. And while Detroit in Michigan for most of the 1900s became the hub of American automobile manufacture, it was actually in Ohio where the first car insurance policy was written.
Ohio had its own mini automobile industry before Detroit took over as the car-making capital of the United States. In Dayton Ohio in 1897, a motorist, one Gilbert J. Loomis took out what is believed to be the first automobile insurance policy on his Oldsmobile. Gilbert presumably was worried about his erratic driving or perhaps the erratic behaviour of horse-drawn vehicles or even careless pedestrians. He approached the Travelers Insurance Company in Dayton and took out a $1000 cover against his vehicle injuring or killing someone or damaging someone elses property.
History does not record the premium, if Gilbert ever made a claim or in fact if he ever received a no claim bonus. But we can be sure that the $1000 total cover he obtained in 1897 would probably not even cover the excess on many of todays car insurance policies.
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