This article considers the changing regulatory environment in which French insurance operated between the ancien régime and the post-war years. At first treated with suspicion, the state came to recognise the social benefits of insurance during the industrial revolution. The extension of regulation over different products and companies – life, marine, general – needs to be understood as a historical process in which first the benefits and then the possibilities for access to substantial financial resources came to be understood. A dual tradition of mistrust and fascination has prevailed in the French attitudes towards insurance, and this paper explores this relationship in a variety of contexts. It is suggested that the eventual nationalisation of much of the industry in 1946 was a signal of both increasing respectability and of the state's desire to offer universal coverage. The opportunity to mobilise and direct investment flows was also attractive.