Providing against cattle disease
A short brochure appeared in Hamburg in 1803 reporting on the founding of an "insurance institution to guarantee against the effects of cattle disease".
The need for this new insurance product is explained in detail in the preface:
“In consideration that one hath long been dispose to preparing for calamities by the establishment of a means of welfare assistance so that one mighte protect one’s property and chattels from possible hazards, this consideration was one to which a local cattle owner came, in the steadfast conviction of the approval of the Almighty and his protection to establish an institution for the insurance against cattle disease, especially that of a pestilent and contagious nature afflicting cows“.
In other places people not only relied on God’s approval or a human insurance cooperative, but on their patron saint. In rural areas St. Magnus was said to look over cattle and ensure their good health. Huge centres of pilgrimage grew up in his honour in the German Allgäu, in St. Gall and south of the Alps too in Pied Mont.
Despite Magnus or the insurance institutions – the cattle pestilences which afflicted Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries were a catastrophe for the farmers concerned.
This is no different to BSE today, our modern-day cattle pestilence. France‘s farmers talk of a major crisis, dark clouds loom over Britain’s agriculture too. In 1996 the British review Risk Management Report somewhat flippantly bore the title Holy Cow. Final BSE target may be insurer Lloyd’s List predicted the same year. Europa muss jetzt handeln (Europe needs to act), Germany’s “Die Zeit“ stated in 2000. And the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung“ hit the nail right on the head: Compensation for farmers. State must pay out for BSE claims. The German TV station, ZDF, broadcast a program as early as 1993 entitled: Mad cow disease – a danger to man? Since then this issue has never been out of the headlines.
"Collector's Items" originate from Knowledge & Information Management and the Company Archive at Swiss Re.
