What did the Revolutionary War have to do with the price of insurance? Plenty.
Shipping insurance, specifically. American privateers — privately-owned ships that were authorized by the new American governments to attack British ships — cruised the Atlantic, looking for British merchant ships carrying valuable cargo. When they succeeded in capturing one, they would put a few of their own men on board and sail the “prize” back home, where they would sell ship and cargo, and the crewmen of the privateer would each get a share of the money. (Of course, the captain and other officers would get bigger shares than the men before the mast.) It was a profitable business — as long as you didn’t get caught by the Royal Navy ships that were out cruising to intercept rebel ships.
But for the merchants in Britain, this kind of war was a nightmare. It didn’t matter whether they were for or against American independence: the privateers were simply out for profit and to hurt Britain, and every British vessel they captured was another step toward both of those objectives. Merchants who invested money in shipping cargo to or from places like the West Indies or the Mediterranean might lose both their ships and their cargo.
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