At 5.13am on 18 April 1906, San Francisco, the seventh largest city in the US, shook, crumbled and then burned to the ground. A massive earthquake, measuring 8.25 on the Richter Scale, brought the city to its knees, sparking uncontrollable fires that raged out of control for three days, taking several thousand lives and making half of the population homeless.
The disaster had a profound effect on the insurance industry of today. Prominent Lloyd’s underwriter, Cuthbert Heath famously instructed his San Franciscan agent to ‘pay all claims’. The quake also laid the foundations for many of today’s modern risk modelling and building practices.
