Caution is the Best Policy for

"Old Mutual"

By John Wessels

The Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia, which carried policies on Mt. Vernon and Monticello at the beginning of the nineteenth century, is the South's oldest fire insurance company and probably its most cautious.

The "Old Mutual" began life in 1794 as "The Mutual Assurance Society against Fire on Buildings of the State of Virginia." Policyholder No. 72 was John Marshall, the famous chief justice, who was the first general counsel for the company.

In 1796, Justice Marshall's home and outbuildings on what is now Marshall Street, were insured by the company for $5,900. The policy has been in continuous effect ever since, and there has never been a claim against it. Today, the historic brick building, less the vanished outbuildings, is considered by the "Old Mutual" to be a good $4,800 risk.

Thomas Jefferson signed an application for fire insurance with the "Old Mutual" in 1800, protecting Monticello to the extent of $6,300. Five years later, the company insured the entire estate of Mt. Vernon against fire for a total of $25,720. Both policies were discontinued in 1820 when the company's country branch went out of existence.

"Old Mutual" surveyors, then and now, conduct meticulous inspections of property to be insured. Dwellings must be constructed mostly of brick and stone. The company will not write insurance at all in some sections of Richmond, but in others, every house in a block will merit a policy.

Reports of these inspections, complete with sketches, have been a gold mine of information to historians, who pored over them until the company had microfilms made and placed in the State library. Architects reconstructing Colonial Williamsburg copied dimensions of building after building from these records.

The "Old Mutual" is very wary indeed on commercial property. A maximum of $5,000 is imposed for the protection of mercantile establishments which will pass inspection, and the company will insure only a limited number of commercial buildings in a block.

The block itself must be properly located. The Mutual Building, which the company erected in 1904, is not considered a good risk by the "Old Mutual," because of its location in a highly congested area.

The company still has some policies on downtown buildings, harking back to the days when East Main Street was the center of town, but the owners could not get a new policy today.

Not that the Mutual Building and all of the others are poor fire risks. They all have top-bracket ratings with fire underwriters. The "Old Mutual" doesn't have to take the risks in a congested area, and so it just doesn't write the policies.

Such conservatism has paid off, according to W. Meade Addison, principal agent. Today, it would take an atomic bombardment to force an extra "assessment" on policyholders. Business is pretty well restricted to the cream of residential property in principal Virginia cities, and there are plenty of applicants, despite the fact that the "Old Mutual" does not advertise.

The answer is the extremely low rates made possible by the gold-plated nature of the company's risk, plus periodic inspections to provide maximum protection. A typical "Old Mutual" philanthropy was the gift of a fire engine to the City of Richmond.

Financially, the company was well fixed enough to send each policyholder a receipt marked "paid" for all insurance in the year 1906 and again in 1945, to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.

A staff of just seven runs the business from Mutual Building offices, including Addison G. Moffett King, as secretary, and G. Moffett King, Jr., as assistant secretary. The board of directors reads like a financial Who's Who in Richmond.