House organs of the INA (1913-1963)

21 December 2018

The management of the Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni encouraged the idea of a corporate magazine going all the way back to 1913, a year after its founding. Various attempts, some lasting longer than others, were made, before it assumed its final form in the early fifties with the “technical and informational bulletin” which took the name “Cronache dell’INA”, and which was launched with the invaluable support of the Company president at the time, Roberto Bracco (1951-1960).

Cronache dell'INA n. 100This corporate magazine accompanied the life of the state-owned insurance company until the eighties. Together with its predecessors, “Il Bollettino” (1913), “L’Annuario” (1923-1926), “Il Bollettino del Centro Studi” (1938-1943), “Il Bollettino d’Informazioni” (1946-1948) and “Il Notiziario INA” (1951), all intended as means of communication between the heartlands and the periphery, they form a veritable goldmine of information for students and researchers from across a range of disciplines. The pages of the “Cronache dell’INA” contain first-hand accounts of the INA’s activities, the special requests entrusted to it, its real estate assets, its organisation in peripheral regions (national and in the colonies, oversight and sales), the people behind it (from the president down to the newly-hired employee, from the managing general agent to the fiduciary and the producer), the work of related companies (such as Assitalia, Fiume, Fiumeter, and Praevidentia, among others), technological development, and recreational activities. It also provides detailed information regarding several fields closely linked to insurance, such as medicine, law and the history of welfare, as well as many of the hot-button topics of the day, such as – in the sixties for example – the introduction of the legal requirement for motor insurance (RCA; “responsabilità civile auto”) or nuclear energy liability insurance. The INA house organs from 1913-1963, the year of its golden anniversary, are presented here in a digital format.