Supervision and legal status of foreign insurance companies in the Ottoman Empire

Modern insurance, a Western-based institution, entered the Ottoman Empire mainly through the activities of foreign insurance companies that were shaped by the economic, social, political and legal developments in the West. The activities of these companies have been encountered especially since the second half of the 19th century, when the state turned to the West in a legal sense, in parallel with the adoption of an economically open structure. In this study, the struggle to control these companies, which operate unsupervised and only considering their own commercial gains under the capitulation system existing in the country, with the legal regulations enacted to protect public order and national interests, and the provisions regarding the audit law included in the relevant regulations, in addition to these the legal status of the companies was examined. The experience gained in relevant matters provided an infrastructure and vision for the legal policy and legal regulations adopted on these matters in the Republican Era; It constitutes an important stage in the historical development of Turkish insurance law.