1666 On September 2, 201666, flames from a bakery covered the entire London. In this 4-day fire, four-fifths of the city turned into ruins, 13,200 homes were destroyed, property losses were more than 12 million pounds, and more than 200,000 people were displaced and homeless.
This year marks the London fire 350th anniversary. As one of the eight major disasters in London's history, this fire changed the face of London and gave birth to modern fire insurance.
How does a high fire burn? After this, how did fire insurance develop? What are the characteristics of fire insurance now?
Follow our steps and take a journey through time!
From the bakery
It was a dry and hot summer night. At about midnight on Sunday, September 2, 1666, the King's Bakery in Putting Lane, London suddenly caught fire. The bakery is close to the downtown Thames , and the surrounding warehouses and shops are full of flammable and explosive materials. Mars, which was swept by strong east wind, ignited the accumulated coal, wood, alcohol and diesel barrels, and the fire suddenly became uncontrollable and continued to burn into the city. A senior worker living on the top floor of a bakery sounded the alarm. Witness Perpis wrote in his diary: "If you were standing in the wind facing the sky and the earth, you would almost be burned by the raindrops made of Mars."
Artwork that reflects the fire in London
The crowds of fleeing mainly ran to the Thames, where ships were loaded with refugees were everywhere. At the fire scene, some people rushed into the sea of fire to rescue property, and some stayed to use rubber buckets to fetch water to try to put out the fire. The flames soared into the sky, with crying and crackling sounds of house bursting. The city of London is in chaos. Pepis reported to the king's younger brother what he saw and heard on the boat. Only then did the British royal family realize the seriousness of the disaster and began to organize firefighting.
Facing a large sea of fire, using a wooden barrel or a hand-cranked water pump to put out the fire is obviously a drop in the bucket. On the east side of London City, soldiers and sailors used gunpowder to blow up houses, and the vacant land formed was people's fire protection passage. This method controlled the fire and also saved the Tower Bridge in London east of the city. In the west of the city, just as the fire was about to threaten the palace, the wind began to weaken, and people finally put out the fire in the early hours of Friday.
In this unprecedented fire, although only 5 people were killed miraculously, tens of thousands of people were left homeless, and they could only build simple tents outside London. The city of London has 13,200 houses and 436 British fields. The most serious disaster is the famous St. Paul's Church: "The melted lead melt flooded the nearby streets. The heat wave caused the stone creation to explode, and even the ancient tombs were blown up, revealing many mummy-shaped corpses."
British drama "London Fire" stills
According to conservative estimates, the fire caused about 10 million pounds of losses, while the annual income of London at that time was only 12,000 pounds.
(Excerpt from "London Fire Gives Modern Fire Insurance" - Renshou, published in China Insurance News)
The father of modern fire insurance is actually a dentist
The survivor after the disaster is very eager to have a reliable protection to compensate for the losses caused by fires, so fire insurance is very important to people. Under this situation, the smart dentist Ba Peng set up a business office in 1667 to handle residential fire insurance. In 1680, he and three other people raised 40,000 pounds; established a fire insurance business office, which was renamed Phoenix, Phoenix Fire Insurance Company in 1705. Among Bapong's customers, a considerable number are the people who rebuilt their homes after the London fire.
Bapong is also known as the "father of modern fire insurance".
↑ London Fire Monument, built in 1830, designed by Christopher Rennes to commemorate the London Fire in 1666.
Bapong's fire insurance company calculates insurance premiums based on house rents, and stipulates that houses with wooden structures double the premiums for houses with brick structures. This method of sorting insurance based on housing danger situation is the origin of modern fire insurance differential rates. Fire insurance has become modern insurance, which is similar in time to maritime insurance. In 1710, Bofan founded the London Insurer Company, which later changed to the Sun Insurance Company, which accepted movable property insurance other than real estate, and its business scope was throughout the country.From the late 18th century to the mid-19th century, Britain, France, Germany and other countries completed industrial revolutions one after another. Machine production replaced the original manual operation, and the large concentration of material wealth made people's demand for fire insurance more urgent. During this period, fire insurance developed extremely rapidly, and the form of fire insurance companies was mainly joint-stock companies. Entering the 19th century, in Europe and the Americas, fire insurance companies appeared in large numbers, and their underwriting capacity was greatly improved. A fire in Chicago in 1871 caused $150 million in losses, of which the insurance company paid $100 million, which shows how wide the coverage of fire insurance was incurred at that time.
After the London fire, building fire insurance has received high attention. The claim settlement work of fire insurance is becoming increasingly complicated, and the requirements for professional claims have been put forward, which has become the most direct driving force for the insurance loss determination industry. In the early 7th century, most insurance companies engaged in fire insurance business adopted independent specialized technicians as their agents, and such people were called "valuators". It can be regarded as the prototype of insurance damage-based persons. Valuators involve various industries in construction, measurement, valuation, trading, business and law, and thus gradually develop property valuation companies.
China's fire insurance
The earliest fire insurance company in my country was the "Hong Kong Fire Insurance Company", which was established in Hong Kong in 1866 by the British merchant Jardine Malays Corporation. It is the earliest fire insurance company in China. The registered capital of is US$20,000. The big comprador He Dong is one of the company's managers in China. The company's annual profit is equivalent to 50% of its equity capital, and its stock appreciation has reached 400%. It can be seen that there were very few insurance companies that matched it at that time.
The business scope of the early fire insurance industry is not limited to Hong Kong, and there are also customers of this fire insurance company in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. At that time, in order to prevent the insured from setting fires and moving objects, the insurance company hung a copper or iron fire mark on the lintel of the insured household, which not only facilitated the police's inspection, but also reminded the firefighters to fight for rescue. At that time, most Chinese insurance households were proud of hanging insurance trademarks, because most foreign investors were not wealthy shop residents, and they did not dare to insure them rashly.
Now there is a insurance policy issued on June 12, 1924 in the Shanghai History Museum. At that time, the Chinese name of the Hong Kong Candle Insurance Company on the policy was "Hong Kong Candle Swallow Comb Company". "Yansong" is the transliteration of insurance (Insure).
The system of Hong Kong Candle Insurance Company follows the British insurance company system. In the early years, the British fire brigade was affiliated with the insurance company. Later, the fire brigade was separated from the insurance company and merged it into the police system. The insurance company still maintained a close cooperative relationship with the fire brigade, often investing in donating fire trucks or compiling fire promotional materials, and distributing them to the public for free, in order to improve people's fire prevention awareness and prevent fires.
From the perspective of mainland China, early insurance products are mainly "fire insurance" and "water insurance", unlike the current fine classification. Moreover, for insurance companies participating in insurance at that time, the insurance company will nail a fire sign on the insurance door. When a fire occurs, the fire department will rescue the insurance company first.
Fire insurance is the earliest business that was opened after the establishment of the People's Insurance Company of China. In 1950, when the People's Insurance Company of China was founded, the maximum limit for fire insurance was 3 billion yuan (old coins) to ensure the reduction of the risk of huge insurance.
The fire insurance at that time included two types: ordinary fire insurance and citizen property insurance. Ordinary fire insurance mainly covers the property of private industry and commerce, while citizen property insurance covers the property of individuals. Most of the foreign embassies and many overseas Chinese in our country have fire insurance. Before the implementation of compulsory insurance, state-owned enterprises also voluntarily insured ordinary fire insurance.
From October 1952, ordinary fire insurance opened by national insurance institutions has made great progress. According to statistics from 76 cities in Central and South China, industrial and commercial households insured fire insurance accounted for 21.36% of all industrial and commercial households. In 1952, more than 400,000 employees and residents participated in the insurance.
In January 1953, the Zhangzhou Branch of China National People's Insurance Corporation of Fujian Province presented a fire truck to the fire brigade.
From October 1949 to the end of 1952, the fire insurance premium income of the People's Insurance Company of China reached more than 430 billion yuan (old coins), and compensation of 28.9 billion yuan (old coins), while the fire insurance premium in 1953 reached 213 billion yuan (old coins).
(Excerpt from: "my country's earliest fire insurance company - Hong Kong Fire Pillar Insurance" comes from Hunan Fire Network; "The Test of Fire - The Long-term Relationship between Chinese People's Insurance Company and China Fire Protection" - Gao Xing, published in China Insurance News)
Modern fire insurance and fire public liability insurance
Fire insurance has undergone major changes after more than three hundred years of historical development.
1. insurance target extension
The initial fire insurance only covered the house, and later expanded to the family property within the house. To this day, the subject matter of fire insurance not only includes real estate and movable property, but also benefits related to real estate and movable property, such as loss of profits, necessary expenses paid during business interruption, etc. Therefore, the subject matter of fire insurance has changed from a house to various real estate, movable property and related interests.
2. Underwriting risk extension
The initial fire insurance only covers a single fire risk and only covers direct losses caused by fire, not indirect losses. Later, it gradually expanded to the risks of lightning strikes, explosions and other fire-related risks. To this day, the risk of fire insurance has been expanded to include various listed natural disasters and accidents. It can directly or specifically cover fire, explosion, lightning strike, storm, snow disaster, slashes, mudslides, machine damage, and even theft, floods, earthquakes, wars and other risks. It can cover both direct losses and inquiries (such as profit losses).
3. The policy format is going to be standardized. Fire insurance started with
does not have a standard policy format. Fire insurance companies in various countries around the world do their own things, and the policy formats are different. Massachusetts, USA, launched its first standard fire insurance policy, which contributed to the standardization of fire insurance policies. Since then, countries have implemented standard insurance policies for fire insurance, which has greatly reduced the difficulties in claims disputes and court interpretation.
4. The underwriting capacity has been greatly enhanced. In the early stage of the development of fire insurance, the insurance company's underwriting capacity is very low. For the insurance insurance standard with a high insurance amount, it often requires several insurance companies to jointly ensure the fulfillment of the compensation liability. With the emergence and development of reinsurance in the international insurance market, the insurer's underwriting capacity has been greatly enhanced. No matter how high the insured amount is, it can be insured by an insurance company and then diversified the insurer's own risks through de-insurance.
5. The trend of determining insurance premium rates is scientific
Although fire insurance at the end of the 17th century had begun to implement differential rates according to the structure of the house, the fire insurance premium rates at that time were small, simple in classification, and high overall rate levels. Nowadays, fire insurance considers more influencing factors in the rate determination and uses a more scientific classification method to calculate, so that the rate level is more scientific and reasonable.
6. The scope of compensation has been expanded to the scope of compensation for
fire insurance, and has been initially responsible for only compensating for the losses of the insured subject matter to expand to the reasonable sorting, protection and rescue costs paid to reduce insurance losses when an insurance accident occurs.
Fire public liability insurance is the insurance that takes the compensation liability for the insured person's injury to a third party caused by the fire as the subject of insurance. is an effective method to transfer and resolve fire risks through market economic means. The development of fire public liability insurance is conducive to the role of economic compensation in the insurance industry, and properly and quickly resolve the compensation issues of disaster-stricken objects. It is a concrete manifestation of the insurance industry's role in serving economic and social development.
In fact, in the current property insurance claims, the losses caused by fire also account for a considerable proportion. On September 4, 2013, a fire broke out at its factory in Wuxi New District, Jiangsu Province. The estimated insurance loss amount was US$900 million, accounting for about 15% of the premium income of my country's corporate property insurance in 2012 (about RMB 36 billion). As of that time, it was the largest compensation case in the domestic property insurance market.
Hynix fire scene
Edit Ye Juelong
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