3.1 A brief history of insurance

The first known contract of insurance dates back to the fourteenth century: a marine insurance contract devised in Genoa, Italy. As trade by marine voyage proliferated in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, methods of insuring did the same. Trade across the continent saw growth in insurance practices, and policies seen in England around the time were typically issued in both Italian and English. Records differ on the date of the first known insurance transaction in England: reports from the Court of Admiralty suggest it to be 1545, in the case of Emerson v De Sallanova,1 whereas Guido Rossi states that Italian merchants residing in London were involved in such practices in 1426.2 Nevertheless, the oldest known English policy extant is recorded in the 1547 case of Broke v Maynard.3