(Photo/Ningbo Daily)

China’s first insurance themed museum, the China Insurance Museum, opened in Ningbo, east China’s Zhejiang Province on Jan. 12, Ningbo Daily reported on Jan. 14.

With a total area of over 4,000 square meters, the China Insurance Museum is a four-story building located at No. 126 Baishalu Road, Jiangbei District, Ningbo City. It is free to the public, and provides visitors with an authoritative and comprehensive explanation of the insurance industry by using collections, display boards, and interactive devices.

The museum tells visitors the history of the world’s insurance industry and the development path of insurance in China using historical materials, cultural relics, recorded history and cultural exchanges.

The museum is not only a platform for the exchange of insurance cultures between domestic and overseas insurance industries, but also a platform for research on the history, culture, and development strategies of China’s insurance field. It's also a foundation for publicity and education on insurance-related risk management and innovations in insurance, according to Ningbo Daily.

Co-hosted by the Ningbo Municipal People’s Government and the Insurance Society of China, and run by the Chinese Museum of Finance, the China Insurance Museum is anticipated to become a cultural landmark of China’s insurance field and is expected to have a global influence on insurance culture within the next three years.

Ningbo is among the first batch of Chinese cities where the country’s earliest insurance deals were born. Ningbo merchants are meant to have signed the first marine insurance contract in China’s history and set up China’s first batch of insurance companies, which had dominated the development of China’s insurance field for nearly half a century.