Who's that insurer?

Insurance industry practitioners typically don't make headlines, but over time the industry has been home to some well-known names.

Not only was Benjamin Franklin one of America's founding fathers, he also led the move to start America's oldest insurance company, the Philadelphia Contributionship, which began operations in 1752. About 70 Philadelphians joined with Franklin to form a mutual insurance company. Members paid in equally to the contributionship and funds were used to pay for losses suffered through fires to members' property. Franklin also proposed other forms of insurance, including life insurance and annuities. He also wrote publicly about insurance for widows and orphans, as a form of pension protection. Toward the end of his life, Franklin extended his proposals to include crop insurance.

Poet Wallace Stevens began his insurance career in 1916 by working in surety claims, eventually rising to become vice president of Hartford Accident & Indemnity. He also was a vice president of Hartford Livestock Insurance. In his obituary, the New York Times reported that Stevens was a highly disciplined man who was comfortable in both business and the arts--at the same time. "It gives a man character as a poet to have this daily contact with a job," Stevens told a newspaper reporter.

Composer Charles Ives may be known for his music, but it was his role as co-founder of the Ives & Myrick insurance company in New York that gave him the means to pursue the arts. Ironically, he wasn't recognized as a great composer until later in life, when he had stopped most of his active composition work. By the time he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for a symphony he had composed 40 years earlier, he was a wealthy man from his insurance practice and gave away the $500 prize.

Writer Franz Kafka is known for his dark and introspective novels, but until his retirement Kafka worked in the insurance business. He initially gained employment at a private insurance firm, Assicurazioni Generali, and then at the Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute of Prague. His work was highly valued at the company, and during World War ! his supervisors arranged for his draft deferment. Kafka's job in insurance allowed him to pursue his literary career in the evenings. At work, he's credited with being responsible for policy changes that saved the lives of many workers.

Former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill left the world some memorable phrases, including "All politics is local." But he got his professional start as an insurance agent in his native Massachusetts. In his retirement speech in 1987, he contrasted the world of the 1930s with the present: "Health insurance was out of the question. For the elderly, life was filled with uncertainty, dependency and horror. Only the lucky few had pensions. There was no such thing as Social Security."

The Starbucks phenomenon may eventually pale in comparison to the 300-year impact of restaurateur and publisher Edward Lloyd, who ran a coffeehouse in the City of London in the 17th century. Underwriters in what is today's ocean marine lines began gathering at Lloyd's Coffee House. Lloyd's began on Great Tower Street in 1688 and moved to Abchurch Lane in 1692. Underwriters would conduct business, and businessmen and insurance brokers quickly learned where they could locate an underwriter--then find another underwriter if they didn't like the proposed terms, in addition to the coffeehouse, Edward Lloyd in 1696 started a newspaper of shipping and other risk intelligence, which was aimed at his customers and their clients.

Source: A.M. Best research