Insurance Building

View the Insurance Building on the Capitol Campus Map.

The Insurance Building is the second building built under Walter R. Wilder and Harry K. White's Master Plan. (The Temple of Justice was the first.) Originally called Office Building A during development, it is significant for its defining role within the 1912 Washington State Capitol Campus Master Plan.

The Insurance Building is the prototype for key architectural features, finishes, and ideas for developing the Legislative Building. It is also the prototype for a proposed building intended to mirror it on the opposite side of the Legislative Building. However, that was never built because the Governor's Mansion was built there instead.

Today, the Insurance Building is home to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, the Office of Financial Management, and the State Auditor's Office.

History

In September 1919, the Washington State Capitol Commission began discussing the construction of a new Legislative Building on the Capitol Grounds to relieve space constraints at the Old Capitol Building in downtown Olympia. The commission wanted the new Legislative Building to be complete before the next legislative session began.

However, Wilder informed the commission that completing a new Legislative Building sufficient to house the legislature would not be feasible in that short time frame. Given the complexity of such a monumental building, he warned that the design process alone could take several years. He recommended that the commission begin with an office building that could be designed, built, and occupied within a few years.

The same month, Wilder and White submitted the tentative plans and a report for the office building, addressing changes to the design relative to the proposed sketches included in their 1912 Master Plan. Their plans and report detailed the office building's overall layout and finishes, using the existing Temple of Justice as a baseline for scale, proportions, detailing, and materials.

In their design, Wilder and White limited the new office building's height to three stories so that it would not stand taller than the Temple of Justice. This choice showed their intentions to enhance the focus on the Temple of Justice and the Legislative Building's architecture.

The State Capitol Commission approved the plans for the new office building. The construction schedule called for the building to be partially occupied by January 1, 1921, and required construction to wrap up by September 1921.

Construction began in February 1920 and proceeded on schedule. By the summer of 1920, crews were almost done with the interior finish work.

In January 1921, the Insurance Commission moved into the first floor, briefly sharing it with the Labor Commission and the Reclamation Board until crews finished the upper floors.

On March 24, 1921, House Bill No. 11 (known as the Governor's Administrative Code) became law, moving Governor Louis Hart's office to the second floor of Office Building A until the new Legislative Building (then in its planning phase) was complete. This change forced Wilder and White to revise their floor plans immediately.

Completed spaces on the second floor had to be revised, and walls had to be added and removed according to the new plans. The decision to locate the Governor's Office on the second floor substantially impacted the neighboring office spaces, particularly in the north end.

On April 18, 1921, the contractor received formal approval to carve the words "Insurance Building" at each end of the building, transitioning the final name from Office Building A to the Insurance Building. This name corresponds to the building's primary resident agency, the Washington State Insurance Commission (now the Office of the Insurance Commissioner).

On August 17, 1921, the Washington State Capitol Commission formally accepted the Insurance Building as complete. The project's original budget was $600,000, but it ended up costing nearly $1.1 million.