insurers. Every person capable of making a contract may be an Who may be insurer, and may authorise any person capable of being an agent to underwrite policies in his name and on his behalf. This description of agency in marine insurance is very commonly used by private underwriters and public companies. The practice of insuring with individuals was the earliest in use anywhere, and long continued to be followed in this country. The reference that still appears at the present day History. in the ordinary Lloyd's Policy, to "the surest writing or policy of assurance heretofore made in Lombard Street," points to a time when the mercantile operations of exchange and assurance carried on in London, were chiefly in the hands of Italians, who congregated about the locality ever since known to us by their name. It is from their language that we derive the word which designates the instrument of assurance, polizza, which, in its English form becomes policy, having nothing but the appearance in common with the word that we apply to statecraft. The enterprising vigour of these foreign merchants in England provoked the jealousy of our House of Commons, who petitioned the King against them in the 18th year of Henry VI., 1439, A.D.; but the King refused his consent to its being made law. A severe Act, however, was passed against them in the first year of Richard III. In time, these natives of Lombardy were suc- The Lombards ceeded by English capitalists, who were wont to determine superseded. their disputes respecting risks and losses and premiums by a species of tribunal of commerce, the members of which were appointed every year by the Lord Mayor. That judicature ceasing in the reign of Elizabeth to be of influence with the citizens of that time, was then, and afterwards, in the reign of Charles II., successively renovated, but in vain. In the time of William the Third and Queen Anne, when Lloyd's coffee-houses in London were the fashionable places of resort, underwriters. Lloyd's rooms. Lloyd's agents. Lloyd's written lists. and some of the most noted of these became the haunts— each for a peculiar class, (as Will's, for literary men), Lloyd's, at the corner of Abchurch Lane, in Lombard Street, became the celebrated resort of seafaring men and those that did business with them. There, and subsequently in Pope's Head Alley, and ultimately on the west side of the old Royal Exchange, to which place the coffee-house was successively removed, congregated the underwriters of London, having formed at this centre an association amongst themselves, and with it a ramified system of agency radiating everywhere to the ports of the world, now become of imposing magnitude, essential to the business of marine insurance whether in the hands of individuals or of companies, and indispensable to the general interests of British commerce. Lloyd's underwriters now meet and carry on their business in subscription rooms over the Royal Exchange, still called Lloyd's; consisting of two apartments, one, in which the underwriters sit for the transaction of business with their employers, called the Public Room, and another, called the Private Room, opening out of the first. The affairs of the subscribers to these rooms are managed by a committee, chosen from their own number, called Lloyd's committee, and presided over by a chairman. Agents (generally called Lloyd's agents) are appointed by this committee in all the principal ports of the world, whose business it is regularly to forward to Lloyd's, accounts of all departures from and arrivals at their ports, as well as of losses and other casualties; and, in general, all such information as may be supposed of importance in guiding the judgments of the underwriters. These written accounts, which, in the present state of our commerce, are arriving daily, almost hourly, from some part or other of the world, are posted up as fast as they come in, on the walls of the inner or private room at Lloyd's, and are called Lloyd's Written Lists; as soon as the pressure of business will allow, the contents of these written lists are copied out into two large books, placed in a conspicuous part of the inner room, and also in another book, which is placed in the large outer room for the more convenient use of the general public: lists. after being thus copied into these books, which are called Lloyd's printed Lloyd's Books, the written lists are subsequently printed and filed, and copies are distributed to subscribers. Thus, there are three sources of information relating to the arrivals, departures, losses, &c., of shipping, accessible to the subscribers at Lloyd's :-The written lists, containing the latest intelligence; Lloyd's books, containing this intelligence condensed, methodised, and alphabetically arranged; the printed lists, filed for those who may wish to consult them.' These underwriters individually sign their names at the foot of the policy, and opposite thereto the sum insured by them in figures and also in words, together with the date on which it is done. This is technically called underwriting the policy for so much, and each thereby makes a separate contract with the assured to the extent of the particular sum set opposite to his name, and of the date there expressed. The right of action in the assured is consequently against each separately, and not against all jointly. About the beginning of the great Bubble Year, that is 1719-1720, certain persons desirous of forming a company for the purposes of insurance, headed respectively by Lord Onslow (who afterwards formed the Royal Exchange Assurance Company), and by Lord Chetwynd (who afterwards. formed the London Assurance Company), made sundry unavailing attempts to interest the House of Commons in their favour for that end. At length, hearing that the debts of the Civil List were heavy, and the government in difficulty "The receipt of official news of capture," &c. being a term in a policy, the question was, what would satisfy it. News of the embargo reached a mercantile firm, the agents of the ship, in London, by telegraph; the telegram was carried by the insurance broker to Lloyd's, where upon its being authenticated with the name of the receiving firm, the contents were en- 235 Geo. 3, c. 63, s. 11, and 54 Geo. Form of underwriting. The two Old about the means of meeting them, these two sets of gentlemen offered a contribution of 300,000l. each, provided the Crown would incorporate them with a monopoly as insurance companies. The 6 Geo. 1, c. 18, founded on a message sent down to the House of Commons the 4th of May, 1720, passed the same year, and the King, in consequence, incorporated the two companies with the exclusive right of making sea insurances in their corporate capacity, and restraining all others from granting insurances as companies or partnerships on a joint capital. By an Act of the next year, 7 Geo. 1, c. 27, 150,000l. was remitted to each of the price originally offered for its incorporation. An Act of the following year, 8 Geo. 1, c. 15, relieved them of any liability to double damages or costs at law; and the 11 Geo. 1, c. 30, gave them the right of pleading the general issue to any action on their policies.1 These latter two statutes, as the law stood then, conferred privileges of a value almost inappreciably great. Her Majesty's subjects are now, by the amelioration of the law, generally placed on a level with them in respect of the subject of the former of the two; and the privilege under the latter, though it be still preserved to them, is reduced by the changes in the system of pleading to what is little better than a form and an empty privilege. Their main privilege of exclusively granting marine policies as corporate bodies was retained by them till the year 1824, when the 5 Geo. 4, c. 114, repealed so much of the 6 Geo. 1, c. 18, as restrains "any corporation or body politic, society or partnership, or persons acting in any society or partnership," from underwriting sea policies or lending money on bottomry. During this long interval of a century, the assured could not obtain the joint security of any number of individuals to a marine policy except from these two companies and they, it seems, clogged their acceptance of risks with so many conditions, that the chief current of business flowed in the direction of Lloyd's. It is hardly a subject for wonder, therefore, that Lloyd's underwriters should have 1 They retain this right still, notwithstanding the 5 & 6 Vict. c. 97, s. 3; Carr v. The Royal Exch. Ass. Co., 31 L. J. (Q. B.) 93; 1 B. & S. 956. assisted these two companies in making a vigorous resistance to any repeal of their monopoly. associations or Necessity, meanwhile, gave birth to the shipowners' clubs Shipowners' for mutual assurance of their respective vessels. One of the clubs. conditions of membership usually exacted in these societies is the possession of a certain amount of ship property. An essential peculiarity of their practical working is the absence of premiums. Each member is both assured and insurer; assured as to his own property in the club by all the other members in the ratio of their respective properties in it; and e converso insurer in the ratio of his own property for that of each of the others. Their mutual covenants or agreements are the quid pro quo, the consideration of the contract. The expense of their insurance is determined by the amount of their contributions to losses for the year in addition to the expenses of the club. It seems that no policy is requisite for an insurance with No policy. such a society;' and in such a case, the remedy of the assured for non-performance is held to be in equity and not at law.2 Certainly it is their common practice to deliver out none till it is required, which is never the case until an action is about to be brought to recover a loss. During the monopoly already described, it was essential to the legality of such clubs that their members should be liable individually only, not collectively, and therefore a club that transgressed this rule only so far as to make the members collectively liable for the share of an insolvent member, was held to be illegal.' The repeal of the monopoly formerly possessed by the two old companies has been succeeded by the rapid multiplication of public companies, some of them incorporated by special Bromley v. Williams, 32 L. J. (Ch.) 716. Consequently if a policy is given, the sum for which each member is liable need not appear on it; Dowell Moon, 4 Camp. 166. Harvey v. Peckwith, 12 W. R. (coram Wood, V. C.) 819, (on appeal) 896. 3 Mead v. Davidson, 3 A. & E. 303; Turpin v. Belton, 3 Man. & Gr. 455. 4 Harrison v. Millar, 7 T. R. 340, note; Lees v. Smith, ibid. 338; and see Strong v. Harvey, 5 Bing. 301. Lees v. Smith, 7 T. R. 338. Consequences of their monopoly. the repeal of |
