The London Assurance Company and the Marine Insurance Market of the Eighteenth Century

The growth of marine insurance facilities represents one of the major developments in the history of English commerce during the eighteenth century. Changes in the law and practice of this branch of business led to the publication of many important contemporary works, and in recent years other aspects have been treated in a number of valuable studies.' The aim of this paper is the limited one of supplementing the information already available by an examination of the existing records of the London Assurance Company, one of the two great insurance houses established in 1720.