In the early 1700s, the emerging industry of buildings insurance (following the Great Fire) was doing big business. Insurers created plates, such as this one, in order to identify which houses were insured by each company when the fire brigades arrived – this was a time before there was one fire brigade for each city.  This identification was particularly important in London before the introduction of street numbering in the 1760s. Insurance companies often had reciprocal arrangements with each other, so that if a fire brigade put out a fire at a house insured by another company then the brigade’s company would be reimbursed.

There’s a great blog about the earliest insurers and how they worked on the Museum of London website: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/how-great-fire-london-created-insurance

As you may be marking Insurance Awareness Day (28 June annually) take a moment to reflect on the history that got to where we are today.