Category: Insurance history · Reviewed by Tim Roche, Director · PI & Commercial · Last reviewed 2026-06-05
Royal Exchange Assurance, incorporated by Royal Charter on 22 June 1720, was, with the London Assurance, one of only two corporations granted a statutory monopoly on corporate marine underwriting in Great Britain by the Bubble Act 1720. It was a foundational institution of the London insurance market for nearly 250 years.
Category: Insurance history Also known as: Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, REA Established: Royal Charter 22 June 1720 (6 George I, c.18) Related concepts: London Assurance 1720, Lloyd’s Coffee House, Marine Insurance Act 1906
Royal Exchange Assurance was a chartered joint-stock corporation established with paid-up capital of £1,500,000 to underwrite marine insurance on its own account. Its name derived from its association with the Royal Exchange building, where its underwriters and brokers transacted business. The Charter, together with the parallel Charter granted to the London Assurance Corporation, established a corporate duopoly in marine underwriting that lasted until 1824.
The Charter was confirmed by the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Corporation Act 1719 (in force 1720) — 6 George I c.18 — which also enacted the so-called Bubble Act provisions prohibiting other joint-stock corporations from undertaking marine insurance. The monopoly did not extend to individual underwriters operating at Lloyd’s Coffee House, whose business expanded rapidly in consequence. The corporate marine monopoly was repealed by the Marine Insurance Act 1824.
The 1720 Charters institutionalised the joint-stock model in marine insurance and produced an unintended consequence of fundamental importance for the City of London: by excluding all other corporations, they preserved the field for the individual Names operating at Lloyd’s, whose collective capacity grew to dominate the global marine market through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Royal Exchange diversified into fire (1721) and life assurance (1721) in its first decade, becoming the first composite insurer in the world.
Royal Exchange operated as an independent corporation until 1968, when it merged with the Guardian Assurance Company to form Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance (GRE). GRE was acquired by AXA in 1999. The Royal Exchange Assurance business now sits within the AXA group, although the brand has not been used commercially for decades.
A merchant insuring a 1750 voyage from London to Jamaica could obtain cover either by signing a Lloyd’s slip at the coffee house in Lombard Street, or by purchasing a Royal Exchange or London Assurance policy. The Charter offices wrote on company paper at fixed rates; the Lloyd’s underwriters wrote individual lines at competitive premiums — a divergence that survives in the modern market.
This entry is part of the Apex Insurance Wiki. Last reviewed by Matt Bartlett on 2026-06-05. Next review: 2026-12-05.
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