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INSURANCE.
1043
a system which apparently does not permit of a sure and safe insurance activity
or such as, with reference to the tenets of the document accompanying the
application, do not seem realizable; and the license may be canceled in
consequence of deviation from this law. The prosecution of insurance business on
foreign account without permission is punishable with fines from 50 kronor
to 5,000 kronor for each time summons therefore has been issued and served.
For other various offenses against the provisions of the law fines can be sentenced
varying from 5 kronor to 2,000 kronor where punishment for the offense is not
stated in the common penal code. Fines which fall to the Crown, can be
commuted in accordance with the common penal code. This law does not relate to
reinsurance.
The new insurance laws have come into force from the commencement of
1904 inclusive.
Marine insurance. In the introduction to the marine law of 1667
there are expressly mentioned, among the »useful inventions» which
have necessitated the new law, »bottomries and insurances»; and the
law itself contains an insurance section, divided into 18 short chapters.
At the time of the issuing of this law, there were, however^ no home
insurance institutions in Sweden, except, perhaps, solitary partnerships or »simple
companies» (according to the present terminology), in the form of more or less
permanent unions of private marine insurers, who through the negotiations of
brokers undertook marine risks. At least, Swedish shipowners and merchants were
principally obliged to take marine insurance in such private insurance unions in
foreign countries, — mostly in the Netherlands and in the Hanse Cities of Northern
Germany. According to an estimate of 1733 in the Argus, a paper edited by
O. Dalin, the marine insurance premiums annually drew about one million Dutch
guldens out of the country. But by Royal Resolution of July 4, 1739, on an
application of the Estate of Burgesses at the Riksdag ending that year, a privilege
was granted and »Association Rules» were confirmed for a company,
Sjöassurans-kompaniet, founded on voluntarily signed lots with limited responsibility, which
company began its activity the following year, and was thus one of the earliest
joint-stock companies in Europe for marine insurance. The second Swedish
company of the same kind, Stockholms Sjöassuranssållskap, did not obtain its
privileges until 1816. In 1844 was organized the first large mutual company in
this branch of insurance, Stockholms Sjöassuransförening (now discontinued as
well as the two aforesaid companies).
The development, now attained by home insurance — quite
considerable for our circumstances — dates from about 1860 and 1870,
when several joint-stock companies founded on a perfectly modern basis,
were organized. At the end of 1901 there were 8 such companies in
activity: Gauthiod (sanctioned 1863), Stockholms Sjöförsäkringsaktiebolag
(1867), Ägir (1872), Ocean (1872), Sveriges Allmänna
Sjöförsäkringsaktiebolag (1872), Vega (1882), Sjöassuranskompaniet (1889), Öresund
(1890). The same year there were in activity 15 mutual home
companies, among which the most important is Sveriges
ångfartygsassuransförening. In Sweden speculative business enterprises always play an
incomparably greater part than mutual institutions for marine insurance,
which, of course, is also generally the case in other countries. Besides the
home institutions, there were in 1901 also 11 foreign companies engaged
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