The "Record of Licences issued to Insurance Companies in conformity with Acts of the Legislature of Canada" is a formal register created in 1868 and a sustained operational record with business value until circa 1917. The register was the primary control document used to record the opening of licensing transactions and fees paid for each new Insurance type offered by a firm operating under federal regulation. It is a complete register of licences issued from 1868-1917 and a virtually complete listing of all insurance companies active in the period 1868-1917. Companies established before 1867 by specific legislation would not necessarily be listed, though if they had added a single new insurance type to their offerings after 1868, they most certainly would appear.
For most entries, the register provides sequential number of licence, date granted, name of company, type of insurance program being licensed, country of original incorporation of the company (Canada, France, Britain or U.S.A.), name of head officer or chief agent of the company, city of residence of officer or chief agent of the company , who signed the licence on behalf of the government, to whom the licence was delivered, date of delivery, and fees paid. In some cases after 1912 fees paid with securities have a Treasury Board decision number attached to show the authority for the substitution and valuation of the security. A given company had to be licenced for each line of insurance that it offered, e.g., life, fire, theft, general property hazards etc. A single company might, therefore, appear more than once in the registry.
On page 20, there is a discrete "list of companies registered with the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance under the Insurance Act of 1886," eight listings only, and then the register reverts in its last 11 pages to the form outlined in the first 19 pages. Detailed accountings of fees paid with securities other than cash (legal tender) begin on page 18 (April 1912). There is a notation at the end of the last entry on page 31: "Licences 429-436 also recorded in Register #2." This second volume of the registry has not yet come to light. Parliament passed a new Insurance Act in October 1917 and that appears to have prompted a change in recordkeeping. Entries 429 and 430 are the last full entries for ledger. Entries 431-436 do not fill in the fields for who signed the licence, to whom it was delivered and when it was delivered.
