Yet they also understood that this was not driven by altruism, but by the heavy hand of regulation. As another lecturer of 1922 stated, “While there had been a tendency to a common form almost from the beginning, yet each company had some slight variation from the others…And it probably would never have been achieved unless the state made the matter compulsory.”

The state was New York, which for much of the 20th century seemed on a mission to force standard insurance wording and forms onto a reluctant industry. What became known as the New York Standard Fire Policy, in its various evolutions, was the foundation for all standard building and property coverage until the 1980s.

With much of the coverage foundation laid by 1929, many of the “improvements” since may be seen as variations on a common theme. For example, a key driver of ISO's simplification project of the mid-1980s was to standardize all policy forms and endorsements into a single format of 8 1/2 by 11 pages, rendering them more suitable to the increasing use of automated printing, three-hole punching and placement in binders. Yet in 1922, another lecturer commented on the physical appearance of insurance policies: “All today probably are familiar with the appearance of the standard policy which preceded the adoption of the one which is made to fit into the typewriter. It commonly was known as a blanket form because of its large size.” Reading this made me realize why many of the forms I used in the early 1970s varied in length, from paragraph size to seeming scrolls, but were exactly the same width–to fit a typewriter. Seems the idea that evolving technology drives industry change isn't new, either.

Another machine that drove change was the automobile, which numbered in the millions by 1929. While nearly all car owners understood the need for protection, particularly if financed, that first issue of The Local Agent made clear the impetus for liability coverage was lacking. Despite the growing number of auto-related deaths and injuries, what finally pushed the basic automobile policy with its package of coverages into the mainstream was, as with the fire forms, government. Throughout the 1930s, one state after another enacted the forerunners of today's financial responsibility laws. It is no coincidence that Allstate, focused primarily on auto coverage, was created by Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 1932.

The success of “packaging” all the auto coverages into a single policy later had vast implications for the industry. In 1929, carriers often focused only on certain lines; there were “fire” and “casualty” carriers, and never the twain should meet, either corporately or in their coverage forms.

In reviewing the evolution of insurance coverages since 1929, you would never know the seismic events occurring in the outside world. The Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War had little or no impacts. As today, all the evolutions apparently resulted almost entirely from court decisions, governmental pressures and marketing departments.

For example, in the late 1930s New York again pushed for a standard commercial liability form, for many of the same reasons as the standard fire. Finally appearing in 1940, this standard form has been revised several times since, largely for clarification of intent due to adverse court decisions. Along the way, attempts at providing standardized commercial liability forms for specific risks, such as the old owners, landlords and tenants; manufacturers and contractors; comprehensive general liability forms and the broad form comprehensive general liability endorsement fell by the wayside. Except for the carve-out of commercial nuclear liability, assigned in 1957 by the Price-Anderson Act to the American Nuclear Insurers pool, the current coverage menu of premises/operations, products/completed operations, independent contractors and personal injury has been long established.

The 1980s brought the final demise of these old forms with the new commercial general liability policy, which combined, with slight modifications, the previous comprehensive general liability with the BFCGL. While the bigger news for many was the introduction of a “claims-made” version of the CGL as an alternative to the long-standing “occurrence” trigger, that form, at least as a standard commercial risk application, was soon relegated to the dustbin for three major reasons: agents hated it, regulators hated it, and the liability insurance availability crisis it was primarily meant to address went away.

One major cataclysm–or opportunity–arose for agents in the early 1950s. A few carriers decided there were too many personal lines forms for the typical residence. What followed is what one retired agent many years later summed up in these words: “I used to make a good living selling my insureds six or seven different policies for their home. Then some idiot at a company decides it's a great idea to roll all of these coverages into a single policy, cut the price in half, and slash my commission to 35 percent, so I quit.”

The demon of his demise was the homeowners policy. Although modified significantly over the years as to breadth of coverage and simplification of language, the homeowners policy's key impact was the packaging, not the coverage. As the old agent stated, most of the included coverages were already available as separate policies. He concluded quite accurately that much of the reason for the homeowners policy was marketing, not coverage changes.

A similar progression was taking place on the commercial side. Carrier consolidation from single line into multi-line offerings led to the idea that a single carrier offering multiple coverages as separate forms should offer a product including multiple lines in a single multi-line policy. The standard format was known as a special multiperil policy or SMP, generally comprised of just four coverage sections: property, liability, crime, and boiler and machinery. Yet it seemed every carrier had its own marketing-driven names and variations. As part of the 1980s simplification project, the SMP was replaced by the commercial package policy), basically a format designed for a three-ring binder. You first inserted a “wrapper” that provided a cover page of standard declarations and conditions. Then any other commercial line (typically excepting workers' compensation and specialized professional) could be included by inserting the proper coverage form (now called a “coverage part”) with any needed declarations pages and conditions forms.

One final “packaging” development came along in the late 1960s, but didn't really catch fire until the later 1970s. Again drawing inspiration from personal lines, the businessowners policy (BOP) was often described as a “homeowners-type policy for certain businesses.” While the original eligibility requirements were strict, the BOP later became the standard workhorse for most small to middle market risks. Coverage-wise, its major innovations were a lack of coinsurance requirement and unlimited business income coverage, both keyed to the tight eligibility of only businesses where the risk of such exposures was considered minimal. With the vast expansion of eligibility, however, many carriers have severely limited the original largesse.

I've excluded auto no-faults premiere in 1971 from this brief history of coverage changes due to its nearly constant modifications, with provisions varying widely by state. This makes it primarily an outgrowth of pre-existing provisions: the direct coverage of medical payments, combined with various limitations on tort liability based upon the exclusive immunity concept already developed in workers' compensation. The transfer of the primary flood market from the private sector to the federal government via the establishment of NFIP in 1968 is less a change in coverage than one of source.

One thing that's clear is that despite the intervening years, the French proverb applies: Plus ?a change, plus c'est la m?me chose (in English, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” or as Gomez said to Morticia, “I love it when you speak French!”).

Whether you find this progression appalling (after billions of dollars of investment and wrenching industry change, the vast majority has been vanity, a chasing after the wind?) or energizing (hey, it's never been about the bells and whistles and technical details, but the heartfelt efforts of the individual agent), you have to appreciate this final 1929 quotation, ascribed to President A. Duncan Reid of the Globe Indemnity:

The future will see a gradual weeding out of the incompetent agents in accordance with the time-honored custom of survival of the fittest. No matter what competitive conditions among the companies may develop, it is safe to say that the wide-awake, intelligent and educated agent who represents a sound, solvent company will sooner or later drive out the agent who can sell but cannot serve.

Eighty years from now, you still won't be able to say it any better than that.