第一次大戦前イギリスにおける大規模兼営保険企業の出現

Abstract

When we study the history of British insurance offices, especially in terms of comparative business history, it is paramount to consider 'composite' offices which handle various types of insurance -life, fire, marine and accident. There are no such insurance offices in the US, Germany, Japan and most other countries, but in Britain all major insurance offices, except a few, are large-scale composite offices.Composite offices, in the strict sense of the word, did not emerge until the turn of the century. During the years of 1904-14, some major insurance offices expanded their business by handling 'new-type' of insurance-personal accident, employers, liability, and so on-in addition to tranditional insurance. In other words, it was at this time that the British insurance offices undertook diversification of business.The purpose of this article is twofold. One is showing the process of the emergence of composite offices, and two, more importantly, presenting a picture of the historical character of British insurance business against the background of the maturity of the British economy. References used were the Board of Trade Returns and some insurance journals and yearbooks.The following are the conclusions of this article. Firstly, large-scale composite offices did not derive from life offices (e.g. Equitable, Standard Life), but from fire-life offices (e.g. Royal, North British and Mercantile) or fire-life-marine offices (e.g. Royal Exchange, Liverpool and London and Globe). Secondly, diversification, strictly speaking diversification to 'related business' according to R.P. Rumelt, was the result of amalgamations rather than internal growth. Furthermore, it was around this time that the post, of 'General Manager' emerged, bringing an 'Age of General Managers' to the British insurance business. Thirdly, traditional London based offices (e.g. London Assurance) and specialist life offices (e.g. Scottish Widows' Fund) continued to lose their shares in the insurance market. To the contrary, some active non-London insurance offices, which had a comparatively short history, gradually became of increasing importance.