INSURANCE AND PANDEMIC CRISES

French insurance companies have faced various economic crisis ever since their birth at the beginning of the 19th century. The study especially focuses on three property and casualty insurance companies: the Assurance mutuelle de la Seine et de la Seine-et-Oise (1819), Cérès (1822), and Les Travailleurs français (1883). In the long run, insurance companies came to a financial stability record in 1914 before experiencing a long decrease in its premium: inflation thus appears to be a symptom of a lasting decline in the firms’ equity until the premium are indexed to the price level.