Company history

Carl von Thieme founded the Munich Reinsurance Company in April 1880 together with Cramer-Klett, Finck, Schauss, Pensel and Schmidt-Polex. In 1890 and 1892, Munich Re enters the British and US markets respectively. In 1898, Munich Re has developed a new form of insurance for machinery. The San Francisco earthquake in 1906 still marks Munich Re’s most expensive natural disaster loss. In 1907, Munich Re founded the Europäische Reiseversicherungs-AG dealing with luggage insurance.

Between 1910 and 1917, Munich Re offered aviation insurances as well as life insurances. In 1917, Munich Re and Globus Versicherungs AG founded the credit insurer Hermes AG.  Due to the consequences of the Weimar Republic and the Second World War between 1920 and 1949, Munich Re faced years of uncertainty that even posed a serious risk of the company’s survival. After the war, international transactions were again permitted and Munich Re regained its pre-war business performance level only three years later.

The years between 1990 and 1999 were marked by considerable expansion projects. In 1996 American Re was acquired and renamed to Munich Re America in 2006. In 1997, the ERGO Insurance Group was founded with its subsidiaries DKV, D.A.S. and Hamburg-Mannheimer. Furthermore, in 1998, Munich ERGO Asset Management GmbH (MEAG) was established. In the last decade, Munich Re repositioned itself and developed from a classic reinsurer to a manifold insurance company providing reinsurance, primary insurance and international health insurance services.