Think about a person on a mission, a quest for information that rivals Clark Griswold’s relentless pursuit of the right nerd’s trip. I launched into a journey from the sun-soaked shores of Tampa to the hallowed halls of the Insurance coverage Library Affiliation of Boston with visions of limitless cabinets brimming with insurance coverage maps and dusty Nineteenth-century insurance coverage treatises. I might hardly comprise my pleasure, however alas, destiny had different plans. As I approached the library’s entrance, my coronary heart sank. The doorways had been locked, and my goals of insurance-fueled enlightenment had been shattered. I knew what Clark Griswald should have felt when his hopes of a fun-filled journey to Walley World had been crushed. This was the signal on the door:
I left and got here again later, and the doorways had been nonetheless locked. However after a few calls, the library’s Govt Director, Michael Pezza, appeared. My world and angle immediately modified as he took Donice and me for a tour. Donice stated she was snookered once I promised to take her on a date no person else would ever consider.
Here’s a image of Michael Pezza and me within the downstairs analysis space:
The library’s web site describes itself and its historical past:
The Insurance coverage Library Affiliation of Boston was based in 1887. It’s the nation’s first, and solely remaining, unbiased library devoted solely to the topic of insurance coverage.
Our location at 156 State Road is within the coronary heart of Boston’s historic Monetary District, simply steps away from Quincy Market. The insurance coverage business in New England was began by marine insurance coverage underwriters in places of work on State Road, and different insurers, brokers, and brokers quickly adopted. By the late Nineteenth Century, insurance coverage had grow to be such a big a part of the Boston enterprise group that insurance coverage companies spilled over into an internet of close by streets.
The Library’s first residence was at 55 Kilby Road (now often called 10 Liberty Sq.). It then moved to 4 different close by areas earlier than its 1981 transfer to the place it’s at this time, only a fast stroll from our unique location.
The Library’s mission is to supply members of the insurance coverage, threat administration, and authorized communities, and the general public, with glorious analysis sources and companies, high-quality academic programming, and alternatives for networking and engagement.
The Insurance coverage Library is a nonprofit group acknowledged as tax-exempt below part 501(c)(3) of the Inner Income Code Service and as a public charity by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Library doesn’t obtain any public funds: we’re supported solely by way of membership dues, income from our paid academic applications, occasion sponsorships and ticket gross sales, and thru the generosity of donors to our annual fund drive. All of this assist permits us to proceed to broaden our companies, education schemes, professional bono companies, and engagement occasions.
A Tough Notes article, Proud Custom, Noble Mission, famous the next in regards to the library:
The library’s mission assertion embodies a lofty goal: ‘The Insurance coverage Library enriches the insurance coverage and threat administration group by preserving the historical past of insurance coverage, by providing unsurpassed analysis companies, by offering and supporting training, and by facilitating engagement.’
Its areas of service are historic assortment, analysis companies, skilled training, and networking occasions. The historic assortment is residence to a variety of paperwork, supplies, and ephemera associated to threat administration and insurance coverage. It’s also a repository for vintage hearth marks, Sanborn underwriting maps, historic insurance policies, and trendy coverage varieties.
The library has a public mission but receives no public funding. Income comes from membership dues, training, analysis charges, and donations.
The explanation why this library is essential to me is as a result of it has data and historic proof about insurance coverage. Figuring out how the insurance coverage product was made and the way these within the business supposed for the product to work is essential when arguing how and why the present product and insurance coverage strategies had been derived. Fashionable varieties are barely revised revisions of earlier insurance coverage contracts, which had been modified for numerous causes and are typically defined in these older treatises. Discovering the outdated varieties, treatises, and different reference supplies merely offers me with a greater understanding of the insurance coverage product, which I can use in my apply, advocacy and educating.
This should sound fairly boring to many. Donice was underwhelmed when she came upon about my plans for a novel date. Perhaps this button sums up the thrill about what just a few can admire:
My present tutorial venture is in regards to the supply for the time period “proof of loss” and what it meant at its inception, lengthy previous to the time period being positioned in statutory normal hearth insurance policies. You gained’t discover that data and information in insurance coverage case legislation, however solely in these essential archival repositories.
Thought For The Day
Libraries permit kids to ask questions in regards to the world and discover the solutions. And the fantastic factor is that when a baby learns to make use of a library, the doorways to studying are at all times open.
—Laura Bush