Using the Mary Washington Mutual Assurance Society Database

 

The Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia Policies database, maintained by the University of Mary Washington (UMW) Center for Historic Preservation, contains searchable records of insurance policies from 1796 to 1866 (with ongoing indexing for later years).  It’s a valuable resource for genealogical, historical, and property research.

 

Accessing the Database

 

• Go to the official UMW Mutual Assurance Indices page: https://hisp.umw.edu/mutual-assurance-indices

​

• UMW's Simpson Library has digitized the microfilm into a public digital collection, organized by reels and volumes. Each policy has an automatically generated transcript. ​

  • You can search directly from the index page or download the data as a tab-delimited text file for local analysis resources.

​

​

​

​

​

 

How to Search

 

1. Open the Index Search Page and select your search criteria:

• Match all Criteria and/or Match any Criteria. At least one field must match.

​

• Fields include:

  • Policyholder name (Lastname, Firstname)

  • Added insured name

  • City, County, or Address

  • Year of policy

  • Reel and Volume

  • Policy number

  • Policy type

  • Original policy number

  • Property name

  • Building type abbreviations (e.g. B1-B8)

 

​2. Enter your search terms

• For example, if you know the policyholder's last name and the year, you can find the exact reel and volume.

 

3. View Results

• The index will return the reel/volume and policy details. Clicking a record opens the full transcript or digital image.

• The default view is table format, showing limited fields. Click a record to switch to Form View for the full details of that policy.

​

Understanding the Fields

 

Each record includes:

• Policyholder and insured names

• Location (city, county, address)

• Year of policy

• Reel and volume numbers

• Policy number and type

• Property name and building type(s)

• Policy sketch reference (if available)

​

Understanding the Data

​

• The index is based on the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission's paper index and UMW's 1993 computerization.

• A glossary of building type abbreviations is available to help interpre the "Building 1-8) fields.

• The database allows multi-field searches and can be exported as a tab-delimited text file for spreadsheet analysis.​

 

​

​