INSURANCE, a contract of indemnity, whereby one party, in consideration" of a specified payment, called a " premium," undertakes to guarantee another against risk of loss. The first principles of insurance would appear to have been acted on at a very early period, since, without attaching undue importance to the opinions of writers who contend, on the authority of Livy, that they were known during the second Punic war, or that the emperor Claudius can be considered an insurer, because, in order to encourage the importation of corn, he took all the loss or damage it might sustain upon himself- there are yet extant rules of sundry "guilds," or social corporations of the Anglo-Saxons, whereby, in return for certain fixed contributions, the members guarantee each other against loss from " fire, water, robbery, or other calamity." It was, however, to cover maritime casualties that insurance, viewed in its commercial aspect, seems to have been first undertaken. So early as 1435 the magistrates of Barcelona issued an ordinance relating to this class of business, and we find in the speech of the lord keeper Bacon, on opening queen Elizabeth's first parliament, the allusion, " cloth not the wise merchant, in every adventure of danger, give part to have the rest assured." The merit of being the first to apply mathematical calculations to the valuation of human life belongs to the famous John de Witt, pensionary counselor of Holland, whose report to the states general on the valuation of life annuities has been lately brought to light by Mr. Hendriks. The first insurance company established in Britain appears to have been the " Amicable," founded in 1696; not the office known by that name now, but the one that still exists as the "Hand in hand." Omitting the gambling and other objectionable projects for which the science of insurance has been held responsible, it would exceed the limits of the present article to give any detailed account of even the more legitimate applications of it which are current at the present day: the traveler can be protected from the pecuniary loss entailed from damage by re41 or flood; the gardener from the devastation of the hailstorm; the farmer from the inroads of disease among his cattle; and employer and employed alike reap the benefit of a guarantee on fidelity. 126 estab lished life offices within the United Kingdom appeared in an accredited list published in 1874, and although there were, besides, 66 winding up in chancery, there is an amount of confidence to be placed in the stability and integrity of the greater number existing that cannot be exceeded in any other commercial interest. We propose confining our
remaining remarks to the divisions of fire, life, and marine insurance.
1. Fire the business of fin. insurance is not founded upon such exact data as can be made available in the practice of life insurance, yet considerable progress has been made by the offices towards a correct classification of the risks they run, and the rates of premium range by slight gradations from a minimum of ls. 6d. per cent, which covers an ordinary private dwelling-house, to .4.:3 3s. per cent and upwards, charged for insuring cotton-mills, sugar-refineries, theaters, and like specially hazardous risks. The average rate of premium received for risks in the United King dom may be estimated at 4s. per cent. A duty of 3s. per cent per annum used to be levied by government upon all fire insurances, except farming-stock and public hospitals, and the parliamentary returns made of it afforded valuable statistical information of the total amount insured. The duty paid in the year 1860 amounted to £1,558,608, repro sentino. a gross arndunt insured over the year of £1,039,072,140; and farming-stock, £73,309,898. Since the repeal, in 1869, of the net which levied a duty upon fire insurances, no data remain for estimating the total value of those now effected in this country. The "life assurance company's act, 1870," provided only for the publication of the accounts of such fire offices as do life business also. The local returns made to the board of works, upon which to estimate the contributions of the companies for the maintenance of the fire brigade, afford incidentally an interesting proof of the wealth of the metropolis, and of the magnitude of its business operations. Over the area mentioned, which excludes the important warehouses of the Victoria docks, the returns exhibited by the resident companies of insurances for 1873 showed a total value of property covered of upwards of £488,500,000. Fire insurance policies are of too familiar use to require explanation here, but one point in connection with them may be noticed: unlike a marine policy, they guarantee the insured to the extent of the whole amount specified in them, without regard to the excess of value of the entire property before the fire, unless an exceptional "average clause" is attached to the policy.