INSURANCE RATES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1416, 17 April 1912, Page 10

INSURANCE RATES.

COMPANIES' CASE. HJ3AVY LOSSES-LOW EATES. Several of (lie underwriters of Wellington were approached yesterday by a Dominion" reporter, and asked to state their views on (ho strictures made upon tlieir methods of assessing fire insurance rales in tins city by Mr. T. Balliiiger at the Chamber of Commerce meeting on tho previous day. Most of them pointed out, underwriters prefer to do their busiii«.is in tlicir «wn way, and they do not take- people- outside their business into tlieir confidence. Mr. liallinger's statemoiit will l)is considered at a meeting of tho New Zealand , Council of Underwriters, which is to be held hero to-day, ■and in view of this tho insurance managers approached refused to speak on it. One manager, however, did not consider himself bound to observe silence concerning the business. Ho said at the outset that Mr. Ballingcr's figures as to fire losses did not look right. Tho Auckland figures (JIM.OOO) for the three years that fire Boards had been, in existence, wero certainly wrong, for losses over Mucky, Logan's firo amounted to 6ome .£120,000. Tho burden of Mr. Ballinger's complaint seemed to rest upon a comparison of the area in Wellington, to which' tho lowest tariff applied with similar areas in tho other cities, but this area in Wellington was subject to many disabilities from a fire insurance point of view, which wero peculiar to Wellington. In the first place, a great portion of the heavily-insured area in Wellington was reclaimed land, which, in the case of earthquake shocks, was extremely hazardous to water mains. In a lesser degree there was the same risk of damage to water pipes in the parts of Wellington built on natural ground. Wellington was liable to suffer by an earthquake conflagration, and the very earthquake likely to cause a serious burn, would be .of sufficient, force, to smash up the water supply. Admittedly there wore supplies at different par.ts of the- city, but it had been stated authoritatively lately that the Karori supply was being too rapidly consumed. Again, nono of tho other cities wore built like Wellington, along the foot of a range of hills, along which for days increasingly strong winds blew. The danger to tho city was the greater because the prevailing winds practically followed tho main street lines. And interspersed in the dangerous area was n fair percentage of buildings of inferior construction. . It was a. fact that companies had made losses in their firo insurance business in. Now Zealand for some , years'. This country as a whole had the heaviest annual fire waste per head of population of all the civilised countries of the world. The firo wasto of New Zealand was half a million per year, which was approximately 10s. p?r head. Next in order in all the world came tho United States, where the firo wiasto per head for .1908 was 7s. 10d. wr head. As n matter, of fact, New Zealand companies made most of their profits abroad. Ho referred to tho Banking Record;for 1011 to show, how' enormously hoary were tho fire losses in New Zealand. The loss in dwellings for that year in Now Zealand was ,£142,000, and next in order of demerit of tho Australian States was Victoria, with a loss of .£5G,400. Tho total loss in dwellings for the whole of Australasia was in that year .£238,000, so that New Zealand lost moro than 50 per cent, of the total. In other classes of buildings Now Zealand mostly showed to disadvantage. Their loss was highest in 80 per cent, of the classes of buildings insured. And yet tho rates for fnlly detached dwellings in New Zealand were 6s. 8d; to Bs. Bd. per cent., as compared with 12s. 7d. to 14s. 9d. per cent, in Victoria, and correspondingly higher rates in tho other States.