Fire Insurance

The earliest property insurance form, covering buildings against fire, and the root of the modern homeowners policy.

Overview

After the Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed tens of thousands of homes, Nicholas Barbon opened the first fire insurance office in 1681, and companies soon employed their own fire brigades, marking insured houses with plaques so the right fires would be fought. American mutual fire societies followed, with Benjamin Franklin helping found the Philadelphia Contributionship in 1752, which still operates today. The standard fire policy of the early twentieth century accumulated extended coverage perils step by step, and by the 1950s package forms bundled fire, theft, and liability into the homeowners policy that made monoline fire cover nearly extinct. Fire remains a covered peril in every modern property form.