Evolución de la gestión del riesgo en el sector agrario español: De la economía preindustrial a los seguros

From a long-term perspective (Early Modern Age until the Spanish Civil War), we analyse how the rural world confronted contingent risks that could cause serious material losses. For the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, our research relied on notarial sources based on leases. For the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we used a variety of sources, such as company statutes and balance sheets, trade journals, the Gaceta de Madrid and official insurance statistics. The analysis shows how typical Modern Age practices continued into the twentieth century. The Late Modern period was characterised by difficulty in introducing agricultural insurance, a low level of participation by private insurance companies and recourse to local and provincial mutual societies. The disinterest of the general insurance companies in covering agricultural risk was reflected in the insignificant weight of the corresponding premiums in the overall company figures, with the modest exception of livestock insurance. Mutualism, especially in northern Spain, sought support from public institutions such as provincial councils. Finally, in the first decades of the twentieth century, major agricultural employers exerted pressure on the State to progressively assume responsibility for agricultural coverage.