Note 237c-2 — Chapter III

The English Hand-in-Hand Fire Office for houses, founded in 1696; the Union Fire O., for houses and movable property, in 1714: both mutual institutions. The premium-institution, the Sun Fire Office, 1710 (Frankenberg, Europ. Herold, 1705, II, 181), mentions fire insurance as a special characteristic of England. But we may trace fire insurance on buildings and harvest supplies in the low countries about the Vistula in Prussia, even as far back as 1623. (Jacobi, loc. cit., 131.) Brandenburg fire-fund, 1705, with voluntary admittance of all houses, and fixed relation between the yearly contribution and the insurance capital. If a fire happened, the fund repaired the damage caused to the fullest extent its means allowed. (Mylius, Corp. Const. March. V., I, 174 seq.) Even in 1706, it became necessary to prohibit speaking ill of the institution. It was, therefore, abolished later. The first Würtemberg private fire insurance company, 1754, founded on similar principles, and which was still existing in 1760, had a like fate (Bergius, Polizei und Camerelmagazin, III, 40 ff.), but it was exchanged in 1773 for a mutual public company. In Berlin a mutual insurance company in 1718 (Bergius, Cameralistenbibliothek, 151); in Denmark, 1830 (Thaarup, Dän. Statist., II, 173 seq.); in Silesia,[TN 60] 1742; Calenberg-Grubenhagen, 1750; in Baden, 1758; in Kurmark, 1765; in Hildesheim, 1765; in Hesse-Darmstadt, 1777. In France, the Parisian institution of 1745 is considered the oldest. (Beckmann, Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Erfindd., I, 218.)