Since 1736, Hamburg’s price current consistently listed the marine insurance premiums of the Hanseatic Town as well as of many other European ports. Based on the long-term analysis of these quotations over the course of about 120 years, this book sheds light on the factors of influence (such as weather conditions, wars and piracy, to name a few) which interfered with European and intercontinental maritime trade.

The cause of the long-term decline of premium rates and, by extension also of transaction costs is understood as a consequence of both the restoration of security on the high seas after the Napoleonic Wars and the elimination of the last nests of piracy around 1830.