Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow: 

Beginning in the last seventeenth century, something more like a dedicated insurance market began to form in London. Minds were doubtless focused by the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed more than 13,000 houses. Fourteen years later Nicholas Barbon established the first fire insurance company. At around the same time, a specialized marine insurance market began to coalesce in Edward Lioyd's coffee house in London's Tower Street. Between the 1730s and the 1760s, the practice of exchanging information at Lioyd's become more reutilized until in 1774 a Society of Lloyd's was formed at the Royal Exchange, initially bringing together seventy-nine life members, each of whom paid a $15 subscription. It was after the New York fire of 1835 that American states began to insist that insurance companies maintain adequate reserves. It was after the Hamburg fire of 1842 that reinsurance was developed as a way for insurance companies to share the risk of major disasters. Compared with the earlier monopoly trading companies, Lioyd's was an unsophisticated entity, essentially and unincorporated association of market participants. And the financial arrangements were what would now be called pay as you go that is, the aim was to collect sufficient premiums in any given year to cover that year's payments out and leave a margin of profit.

Who established the first fire insurance company and when?

Created: 1 year ago | Updated: 1 year ago
Updated: 1 year ago

English

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