Introduction

Marine insurance, now a common aspect of corporate risk management, emerged and developed during the Early Modern Period and played a crucial role in the expansion of long-distance trade. Amsterdam, the largest and dominant insurance market, has received most scholarly attention. However, outside Amsterdam's direct sphere of influence, in the Republic's northern province of Groningen, an alternative form of marine insurance was developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: mutual insurance boxes. These boxes were affiliated with skippers’ guilds, and emerged early in the seventeenth century. Their development is of importance, not only because they originated earlier than was previously assumed, but also because of the institutional framework in which they developed and the actual role of the skippers and other parties in the foundation of the boxes.

This chapter is divided into several sections. First, to put Groningen's experience into perspective, I provide a brief overview of the province's economic development and other relevant aspects. Next, I examine the alternative method developed in Groningen of insuring ships, and the emergence and development of mutual forms of insurance, especially the insurance box, between circa 1605 and 1767, with an emphasis on how the various parties affected the developments. The following section relates developments in the northern part of the Republic to those in other regions and industries, focusing on the zeevarende beurzen, Guild boxes and mutual mill insurances in the Zaan region, in order to assess the distinctiveness of Groningen's experience. I then analyse the institutional structure of Groningen's mutual insurance provisions within the broader context of, for example, political and regional characteristics.

Shipping has of old been important for the economy of what is now called the province of Groningen (see map 2.1). The city of Groningen was officially admitted to the Hanseatic League in 1422. Although Groningen did not become one of the major cities of the League, there was active trading with Utrecht, Cologne, Denmark, Westphalia, London, Bristol and Newcastle.