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company needed to be built on a different financial foundation,

and so, in 1681, he created the first known joint stock insurance

company.

Towards the end of the 18th century the first truly modern and

global insurance company, the Phoenix, was founded by an

association of sugar refinery owners in London. Soon after its

foundation it insured risks in distant countries and it was the

first insurer to establish offices abroad.

And hence it was Britain which was the pioneer in property and

life insurance.

As the series of wars in Europe and the Anglo-American

conflict came to an end in 1815, insurance was finally able to

spread on a broader scale beyond Europe and the USA, which

had imported the British invention almost from the start. Based

on growing trade, and in the wake of emigration, the British

system was gradually adopted in most white settler colonies;

namely in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand and in South

Africa.

India was soon to become important as a springboard for the

spread of insurance into the Far East. The East India Company

dominated insurance on the Subcontinent. But underwriting risks

from a London office was almost impossible, since it could take

up to two years to exchange letters with India. The alternative

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