The Massachusetts Health Insurance Co. of Boston becomes the first insurer to issue "sickness insurance," an early form of health insurance.

A French mutual aid society, La Societe do Bienfaisance Mutuelle, establishes a prepaid hospital care plan in San Francisco. It is arguably the first plan resembling a modern Health Maintenance Organization, or HMO.

Railroad, mining and other large industries begin offering the services of company doctors paid for by deductions from workers' wages.

Montgomery Ward & Co. enters into one of the earliest group insurance contracts. The plan, written by the London Guarantee and Accident Co. in New York, covers illness and injury, and is regarded as the nation's first group health insurance policy.

The National Convention of Insurance Commissioners -- a group of state insurance regulators -- drafts the first model for state regulation of the health insurance industry.