The Insurance Division of the Special Libraries Association began an index to insurance magazines, the "Insurance Periodicals Index" (IPI), in 1962. This study examines its historical development. The index was published monthly in an insurance trade journal and then cumulated into an annual edition. Part of the background for its development included the reduction in number of insurance periodicals which were indexed in H. W. Wilson Company publications. Only four insurance periodicals were indexed in the "Business Periodicals Index" during the late 1950s and 1960s. Choice of the vocabulary (subject headings) to be used in indexing was the major problem faced in developing the index, because insurance terminology was not standardized. The Insurance and Employee Benefits Division joined with NILS Publishing Company in the early 1980s to produce an online, as well as printed, index. The early IPI is compared with the indexes produced since the 1983 development of an automated insurance periodicals database; both sets of indexes are evaluated on their content and physical properties. The IPI has from its beginnings been a bibliographic tool for those in the insurance community. It has provided a link between those who need information and one source of information, periodicals. (Contains 32 references.) (JLB)