Fire Insurance Records

(Look for my article, “Fire Insurance Records and the Architectural Historian,” in the Fall 2023 issue of Buildings and Landscapes.) 

Architectural historians are very familiar with Sanborn maps, produced for the fire insurance industry.  It is less widely known, however, that insurance companies and their agents kept their own records that described the properties—the “risks”—they insured.  Such records go back as far as insurance companies go back, which in the United States means to the first insurance company in Philadelphia, the Contributionship, in 1752.  These at first included only written architectural descriptions of the insured properties, but in the early 19th century site plan sketches were added.  By the latter part of the 19th century, bird’s-eye, axonometric drawings of factories became a common feature of industrial insurance surveys.

Some large collections of fire insurance records have become known in recent years, but these represent just a fraction of the tip of a very large iceberg of mostly submerged record keeping, much of which is not yet in the hands of collecting institutions.  It will take a determined effort by the architectural history community to see that these records are secured for the future, and that they are made usable for research.

This site will collect information about fire insurance record collections, material produced by or for insurance agencies or companies (not Sanborn maps).  If you know of collections not listed in this site, please share the information by emailing to contact@advancedoldbuildingresearch.com.  

The following Fire Insurance Records Directory briefly enumerates collections of old fire insurance records known to this author.  

In it, collections are identified as either company or agency records. 

The Directory is organized by state, based on where the collections are held, which is not necessarily where the insured properties were located.  

The dates provided relate to the scope of the records themselves, not necessarily to the founding of the companies.  

The approximate size of each collection is provided if known.  Large collections of unknown size are simply reported as more than 10,000 records.  

Collections generally consist of policy registers or insurance surveys, or both, but at least one collection consists chiefly of insurance agent’s daily reports, and the Salem County Mutual Fire Insurance Company used customers’ applications for insurance in lieu of a policy register.  A few collections, especially in Pennsylvania, are of policies themselves, with architectural description comparable to that of policy registers.  

The entries under “Spread” reflect the general geographic distribution of the risks.  A small percentage of the risks, however, often lay outside the described spread, and the most saturated coverage often occurred at or near where the company was headquartered.  

To contact the holders of the collections, first consult the institutions’ websites.  

In the case of collections that are privately held, the contact institution can provide some information about the collection but not necessarily access to the collection itself.  

Some of the collections listed are not open to researchers at this time, either because the collections have not been processed, or because their owners do not have the facilities or staff to welcome outside researchers.  

Also, please note that the owners of these collections retain the right to restrict publication of their materials, and some charge fees for permission to publish.  

Readers who can contribute information about other collections of insurance records may reach me at rcraig@advancedoldbuildingresearch.com