Hamburger Feuerkasse ( en, Hamburg Fire Office) is the first officially established

fire insurance Property insurance provides protection against most risks to property, such as fire, theft and some weather damage. This includes specialized forms of insurance such as fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance, or ...

company in the world,Anzovin, p. 121 ''The first fire insurance company was the Hamburger Feuerkasse (a.k.a. Hamburger General-Feur-Cassa), established in December 1676 by the Ratsherren (city council) of Hamburg (now in Germany).'' and the oldest existing insurance enterprise available to the public, having started in 1676.Evenden, p. 4

History

The basic idea of fire protection was established in the

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometim ...

s of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The roots are tied to the cooperative arrangements of the

Teutons The Teutons ( la, Teutones, , grc, Τεύτονες) were an ancient northern European tribe mentioned by Roman authors. The Teutons are best known for their participation, together with the Cimbri and other groups, in the Cimbrian War with th ...

of the Middle Ages. The idea was brotherly help to protect one another, especially from fire losses. While many people had the same basic idea, the Teutons took the idea of Christian brotherly love and developed mutual cooperatives exceptionally well. Some of these guilds of Schleswig-Holstein developed into cooperative mutual fire protection groups - the basis of fire insurance. The idea behind the fire insurance cooperative was to provide other guild members with extensive protection and welfare in case of a loss due to fire.Evenden, p. 1 From these early cooperatives of the Middle Ages developed the "fire guilds" as mutual fire insurance associations. Following the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

the basic roots of the original ideas changed some and the "fire guilds" developed into specialized fire insurance groups. These specialized "fire guilds" started in the beginning of the fifteenth century. The earliest known statutes were written up in Suederauerdorf in 1537. This then was followed by several "fire guilds" along the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein in the next few years following. The first municipal guild for fire insurance was "Itzehoe Lieb-Frauen Guild" founded in 1543.Evenden, p. 2 Approximately 100 brewery heirs signed the first "Hamburg Fire Contract" on December 3, 1591. This obligated the members to have to pay a certain sum if one of the partners suffered a loss due to fire. They were called brewery heirs because they inherited their breweries. Brewing beer was a very important enterprise in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This first contract was soon followed by several other fire contracts over the next few years with basically the same clauses. It is not sure if the Hamburg fire contracts were modeled after the Schleswig-Holstein guild fire contracts, however the first "Hamburg Fire Contract" of December 3, 1591, specifically states that the principals of the contract were already being used in other parts of Germany. One difference that has been determined however between the Schleswig-Holstein guild fire contracts and the Hamburg fire contracts is that the latter was just for economic compensation, where the former was for rendering mutual help among the members.Evenden, p. 3 The fire contracts of Hamburg turned out to be ineffective against the many fires that happened in Hamburg in the seventeenth century and they could not compensate everyone that had a loss due to fire. The London fire of 1666 also played a role in the ineffectiveness of the fire contracts of Hamburg. For these reasons on September 21, 1676, the Council of Hamburg appointed a committee to establish a "General Fire Office" which would cover the entire city and bring together all the small fire contracts of the city. Ultimately the committee worked out a general fire contract with 16 articles that would cover everything and all the people of the city. With the acceptance of this new general fire contract then the Hamburg "General Fire Office" was established on December 17, 1676. The Hamburger Feuerkasse ("Fire Office") was then officially founded. It is the oldest official insurance company in the world and has served as a model for other fire institutions in Germany.Evenden, p. 3

References

Sources

*Anzovin, Steven, ''Famous First Facts'' 2000, item # 2420, H. W. Wilson Company, *Evenden, William, ''German Fire Insurance Signs'', Publisher Versicherungswirtsch., 1989,

External links

* {{Authority control Financial services companies established in 1676 Insurance companies of Germany Organizations established in 1676 1676 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire