In 1730, a fire destroyed Fishbourn’s Wharf, on the Delaware River. Then the blaze spread across the street and destroyed three homes, doing thousands of pounds in damage. The Pennsylvania Gazette published an anonymous letter stating that there was no wind on that particular night and that if the proper equipment had been available—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as the letter put it—the outcome might have been different. The author of that letter was secretly the publisher of the paper who then went on to start a volunteer fire brigade in Philadelphia.
Not long after, the same man—Benjamin Franklin—created the Philadelphia Contributionship, which would pay out to its members after a fire: the first fire-insurance firm in America. Not surprisingly, the business idea has stood the test of time. A Mrs. Lydia Biddle was denied membership because her home included a wooden bakehouse that was deemed a fire risk. The actuarial table that made such a decision sensible—and profitable—existed inside Franklin’s head, right next to all those ideas that ended up in the Declaration of Independence.
