The insurance crest incorporated into the building façade of 6 Bishop Rapallo Ramp is a Northern Assurance Company Fire Mark. It shows raised rampant lion on a shield and crown above on rectangular mark with the number 1836 below the shield.

The Northern Assurance Company was established in Aberdeen in 1836 as the North of Scotland Fire and Life Assurance Company. It was incorporated under the Joint Stock Companies Registration Act and renamed the Northern Assurance Company under an act of parliament dated 30th June, 1848. The company initially had two departments, fire insurance and life assurance, which was divided into an assurance and an annuity branch.

In 1907, the company acquired the Compensation and Guarantee Fund and established departments for accident, employers’ liability and burglary insurance. On 1^st September, 1908, the company was registered as a limited company, The Northern Assurance Company Ltd.

Fire Insurance Plaques

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, which damaged or destroyed most of the historic city, there grew an urgent need for a more organized response to fires. This led to the creation of the world’s first property insurance policies.

Insurance companies soon realized that it was much cheaper to prevent fires than to pay for the reconstruction of burnt out buildings so they established their own in-house fire brigades, tasked with protecting the buildings covered under policy—and, in many cases, only those buildings.

To distinguish those building which were insured, insurance companies designed their own fire insurance plaques which were then installed on the exterior of the buildings.

Prior to 1865 there was no Fire Brigade as such in Gibraltar, so all firefighting duties were carried out by the Military. The Sanitary Order in Council which set up the Sanitary Commissioners in 1865 placed upon them the responsibility of the prevention and extinction of fires. The Order in Council also authorised the Governor to make from time to time, Rules and Regulations for the extinction and prevention of fires. So although there was never a need to establish private fire brigades as in London for example, insurance companies in Gibraltar nevertheless issued their own fire insurance plaques serving as useful advertisements to those buildings insured by their company.

Today, only a few examples of these unique fire insurance plaques remain.