Samuel Pepys' diary entries in 1666–67 record first-hand observations of neighbours attempting to recover losses after the Great Fire of London, providing the most vivid contemporary account of early insurance and loss adjustment in practice.

Pepys' diary is itself a landmark of English prose literature; his detailed recording of financial ruin and recovery after the Fire gave future writers — Defoe prominent among them — a model for integrating economic catastrophe into literary narrative. This blending of personal and public history influenced the development of the novel.