Reasekuracja w gospodarce zamkniętej. Działalność towarzystwa reasekuracyjnego Warta w latach 1949–1956

The article is based on documents concerning the Warta Insurance Company and the ministries supervising it. The author intended to discover the reasons why at a time when the Polish economy was closed the state authorities decided that enterprises dealing with reinsurance should continue to exist and maintain trade contacts with their Western counterparts, and to find out how the objectives of reinsurance activity were defined in an economy aiming at autarchy. Moreover, the purpose of the article is to describe the grounds decisive for the range of benefiting from reinsurance protection and the form of reinsurance contracts. Warta was part of a competitive international market and, at the same time, found itself under strict state control. Hence, the article also considers the limits of the company’s autonomy and its possible impact on the decisions made by the authorities. The necessity of realising tasks designated by the state comprised a risk factor. The author discusses the strategies applied by the firm for reducing this hazard.