The first known insurance contract issued in Genoa is generally dated to 1347, marking an important step in the development of modern maritime insurance.
Medieval Mediterranean commerce exposed merchants to storms, piracy, shipwreck, theft, and cargo damage. Earlier arrangements such as bottomry loans combined financing and risk-taking: a lender advanced money for a voyage and could lose the loan if the ship sank. Genoese merchants helped develop separate insurance contracts in which risk protection was purchased independently of a loan or investment.
That separation made insurance more flexible. A merchant could pay a premium to transfer the danger associated with a voyage while keeping the financing of the cargo distinct. During the following century, maritime insurance spread through Italian trading centers and beyond, with premiums increasingly adjusted to reflect the perceived risk of different routes, cargoes, and seasons.
The date is sometimes discussed alongside an earlier surviving contract associated with Pisa, dated 1343. However, for a question specifically asking about the first known contract in Genoa, 1347 is the conventional answer. The word “policy” itself became more standardized in later centuries.