Russian Life Insurance Company

In 1834 , a Prussian citizen Ferdinand Schwedersky appealed to the Ministry of the Interior with a request to establish a joint stock company in Russia to “insure life-long incomes and money capital, with some exceptional advantages”. This proposal and the draft statute were considered by the State Council , and on its positive conclusion, the emperor Nicholas I imposed on September 4, 1835 a resolution "therefore." The new joint-stock insurance company has received the name “Russian Society for Insurance of Lifetime and Other Term Incomes and Cash Capital” ^[1] .

The company received from the government the exclusive right to life insurance in the Russian Empire . The monopoly consisted in the fact that over the next 20 years “no other society, either in Russia or in foreign lands” had the right to conduct operations permitted by the established society (in fact, the monopoly on life insurance in Russia lasted until 1860 ^[2] ). The agents of foreign insurers were prohibited from entering into insurance contracts under the threat of a 20% fine of the sum insured . The exception was a written waiver of insurance of the company itself. The only tax was a duty of 25 kopecks from 1,000 rubles of the sum insured. By 1910, its capital exceeded 40 million rubles. ^[2]

The company's charter provided insurance for four types, or, as they said, discharges: grade A - capital insurance in favor of the heirs (death insurance); category B - insurance of pensions in favor of the heirs and for survival up to a certain term (mixed insurance); category C - insurance of pensions in favor of the insured himself (insurance for survival); category D - insurance of capital and pensions in favor of children when they reach a certain age. More than 97% of the contracts accounted for category A ^[3] .