Mutual Insurance 1550-2015
From Guild Welfare and Friendly Societies to Contemporary Micro-Insurers

Authors: Marco H. D. Van Leeuwen



In the modern Western world, we tend to be insured by the state or for-profit insurers. We have privileged this system over mutual or micro-insurance, whose long and rich history we tend to forget. Yet, mutual and micro-insurance is becoming increasingly important, both in the Western and in the non-Western world and bears re-examination.

This book traces the track record of mutual insurance from 1550 to the present, examining provisions for burial, sickness, unemployment, old age, and widowhood. The author seeks to address such topics as the type of risks micro-insurance covered between 1550 and 2015; how it was organized throughout its history; who provided the coverage; and how contributions, benefit levels, and conditions have changed.

Importantly, the author explores why this system has worked through, and endured, the test of time. Mutual insurance can, for instance, overcome classic insurance problems such as adverse selection and moral hazards. The author demonstrates that the study of the position micro-insurance historically assumed in mixed economies of welfare presents interesting lessons for today’s insurance market, as well as for today’s mutualism.

Table of contents

Front Matter
Pages i-xiii

Mutual Insurance
Pages 1-15

The Era of the Guilds: Mutual Insurance 1550–1800
Pages 17-82

The Age of the Friendly Societies: Mutual Insurance in the Nineteenth Century
Pages 83-165

The Rise and Decline of Modern Trade Union Insurance, 1900–65
Pages 167-217

New Initiatives, 1965–2015
Pages 219-246

Principles and Practices of Mutual Insurance, 1550–2015
Pages 247-279

Back Matter
Pages 281-321

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