The Insurance Museum’s first-ever online exhibition will be launched on Sept. 7. Titled Fire! Risk and Revelations, the exhibition focuses on how fire insurance first came about and how it has developed throughout the years.
The launch coincides with the timing of the Great Fire of London, which proved instrumental in highlighting the need for fire insurance. The online exhibition will consist of four fire galleries – telling the story of fire insurance from its birth in 1667 with the development of the insurance fire brigades, up until 1929.
The Insurance Museum will launch one exhibition monthly, from September to December, with each stage of the story containing various activities, such as interviews with experts, historical objects to view, animations and downloadable activities.
“I am both delighted and excited that the Insurance Museum has been able to adapt and continue progress through the pandemic, and that the patience and hard work of the trustees, Jonathan Squirrell and the team at OB Brand Consultancy, and Howard Benge has finally produced something tangible to show for their efforts,” said Reg Brown, Insurance Museum’s chairman. “We are all well aware of the difficulty employers are experiencing in their efforts to attract talent to our profession. It’s been a constant theme throughout my career. I sincerely hope that Fire! Risk and Revelations will be the start of our efforts to do something about that.”
The Insurance Museum is the brainchild of Brown, and insurance veteran and former CII President, as well as several enthusiastic supporters. These individuals have long been voicing the need for a museum to share the story of insurance to entertain and educate the public, as well as to encourage new talent to join the profession.
“Fire insurance is a great story for the Insurance Museum to tell. In Britain it sprang out of the Great Fire of London as a business opportunity,” said Benge, Insurance Museum director. “Along with the coffee houses and fire brigades, this is a really popular subject with the public and it has a lot of educational interest too. It also offers the chance to show people how insurance underpins society today, as well as in the past.”
According to the Insurance Museum, with further funding and support from the insurance industry, it is planning to produce more galleries, a pop-up museum with educational facilities and a permanent museum to be based in EC3, in the heart of the City of London.
