The series of financial statements by Toro Assicurazioni begins with a booklet regarding the 1849 and 1850 fiscal years, the 17th and 18th years of existence of the Compagnia anonima d'assicurazione a premio fisso contro i danni degl’incendj stabilita in Torino (“the Fixed-Premium Anonymous Insurance Company for Fire Damage Established in Turin”) in 1833.This database offers students and researchers a glimpse into a hundred years of digitalised accounts, reports and financial statements, up to 1949. Precious booklets, the source of endless useful information that can be used to piece together the story of Toro Assicurazioni, are also a tool to examine the impact of huge national and international events of a century of history on the insurance company (Italian Unification, the Great War, Fascism, the Crisis of 1929, the Second World War and subsequent global realignment and the birth of Italian democracy).

Looking specifically at the Compagnia anonima d’assicurazione di Torino (its official name as of the 1920s), from reading the financial statements, we are able to glean information and news regarding changes to the company name, the composition of its board of directors, audit committee and its executive hierarchy in general, its expansion from Piedmont, first to other regions of Italy and later into France and Italian East Africa in the mid-1930s, as well as its various areas of activity (non-life at first, then life insurance starting in 1928), evolving trends over time, the percentages of incidents that occurred, the growth in business, increase in its real estate, diversification of investments, acquisitions, mergers and reorganisations of the many companies in Toro’s orbit: Augusta, the Italian Excess Insurance Company (later changed to Vittoria), La Basilese, and La Preservatrice. Last but not least, these financial statements allow us to recreate the iconographic evolution of the company over the course of a hundred years.