Fire insurance company Deutscher Phoenix

The picture " The intercepted love letter " by Carl Spitzweg (around 1860) shows a black sign of the German Phoenix on the wall to the right of the line with the love letter. It shows in the middle the picture of a phoenix and above and below the words "Deutscher Phönix"

Section of the picture

Seal mark of the German Phoenix

The fire insurance company Deutscher Phönix was a German insurance company based in Frankfurt am Main .

history

In 1834 the fire insurance "Badischer Phönix" was founded in Karlsruhe . In 1842 the "Frankfurter Versicherungsgesellschaft" was founded in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt insurance company founded by Julius Löwengard with its seat on the Roßmarkt in Frankfurt had a capital of four million guilders .

The Badischer Phoenix (officially "Grand Ducal Baden Society of the Phoenix") was founded in 1834 by FR Sohler in Gengenbach. The confirmation by the Baden government is dated October 26, 1834. The seat of the administrative council was Karlsruhe. After the business initially developed well, the company suffered heavy losses in the mid-1840s (see Hamburger Brand ) and was thus forced to merge with Frankfurter Versicherung.

Both companies merged on May 20, 1845 to form "Deutsche Phönix Versicherungs-AG". On July 19, 1845, the new company received a concession for the Grand Duchy of Baden . In the following years the company expanded into other German states. In 1848 it was approved in the Kingdom of Hanover and the Kingdom of Saxony , in 1851 in the Grand Duchy of Hesse , in 1852 in the Kingdom of Württemberg , on January 18, 1855 in the Kingdom of Prussia , in 1857 in the Duchy of Brunswick and in 1862 in the Kingdom of Bavaria . The insurance company was also active outside of the German Confederation . She operated insurance business in Switzerland, which was transferred to Helvetia Insurance in St. Gallen in 1862 and in the Netherlands from 1917.

With an insured sum of 580,875,174 thalers, the German Phönix was the fourth largest German insurance company in 1870 (the Magdeburg , the Aachen and Munich and the Colonia were bigger ).

The inflation brought the company in 1923 in financial difficulties. In March 1923 it was taken over by Allianz and in 1926 it was also formally merged into this company. Deutsche Phönix was the largest, but by no means the only insurance company to be absorbed by Allianz this year due to hyperinflation. In 1923, Allianz also acquired Providentia Frankfurter Insurance Company, Wilhelma in Magdeburg Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG, Freia Bremen-Hannoversche Lebensversicherung-Bank AG, "Union" Allgemeine Deutsche Hagel-Versicherungsgesellschaft Weimar and Bayerische Versicherungsbank AG.

Personalities

• Karl Ludwig Draud , special director 1859 to 1876
• Carl Wirth , special director 1870 to 1876

literature

• William L. Evenden: Deutsche Feuerversicherungs-Schilder / German Fire Marks, 1989, ISBN 9783884871904 , pp. 154, 181-182, 302, part digitized
• Peter Koch: History of the insurance industry in Germany, 2012, ISBN 9783899523713 , pp. 83–84, partial digitization
• Peter Borscheid: 100 Years of Alliance, 1990, ISBN 3-87261-066-X , p. 482

Web links

Commons : Feuerversicherungsgesellschaft Deutscher Phönix  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oberpostamtszeitung 1843, p. 1860, online
2. ^ Journal of the Royal Prussian Statistical Bureau, Volume 14, 1874, p. 26, online