LEAKAGE OF WAR SECRETS
ENGLISH RISKS INSURED IN GERMANY The notice issued recently by the Secretary of the Admiralty forbidding communication to other than British companies or persons of information that inay be of value to the enemy, either upon reinsurance or' otherwise, in connection with the insurance of Government work, draws attention to many phases of fire insurance/ practice with which the general public is unfamiliar, llie ordinary business man placing a large risk with a British fire insurance company is probably aware that the 're k® divided amongst several offices, but he certainly does not realise that within a few hours of the business being undertaken insurance companies is far away as Petrograd or Athens "jay be interested as insurers of a por- ' I<ul ?f the sum at risk. Consideration of this internationalism in the splitting }>I> of risks reveals the urgent neccsity for the recent Government action. It is, indeed, surprising tliat action was Mot taken at the outbreak of war. The great _ danger that could result frort permitting reinsurance, even with offices in friendly neutral countries, upon Government work or upon buildings in which Government work was being done _ will bo readily understood Mien the inter-relationship of. insurance companies throughout the world is considered. At the present time many British offices have "treaties" with Norwegian and Dutch companies, who, again, may have treaties of their own with offices in enemy countries, and there is no means of preventing vital secrets from reaching our enemies so long as such treaties exist, except by the rigid enforcement of the prohibition already referred' to. Government military and naval works, it is true, are not covered in the market, and no secrets regarding their extension or contents can lead out in this way. But private shipbuilding yards, armament works, and the innumerable workshops n P. ,v .busy on Government contracts of till kinds are insured and reinsured in the ordinary "*ay. Four large German companies—the Thuringia,, tlie AachenMunchen, the Kolnische, and the R P°f ,ur ? — we . ro ' ar ß e b' concerned in feJighsh risks in pre-war 'days, and tliero arc thirty; German insuranco offices which specialise in insurance. The berman insurance companies in prewar days received millions of pounds in premiums from the British offices, without the knowledge of the British inBuren, and with these premiums they necessarily received full details of the wature. and position of the risks they were insuring, thereby obtaining information whicli could in certain cir cumstances prove of immense value to the German authorities. No Reciprccal Arrangements. In this connection it is interesting to noto that—for purely domestic reasons— there have been 110 reciprocal arrangements whereby German risks were undertaken, by British offices. The eagerness with wMcli Continental offices seek reinsurance business from offices in this country indicates the profitable nature of the transactions, and considering that the usual loss ratio does not reach 50 per cent, of the premium income the desirable natilre of the business is apparent. Tho ignoronco of the insuring public concerning these arrangements may be illustrated by nn observation mado to the writer by a very large insurer, who stated that he had been amazed to learn that an office to which he had paid hundreds
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19160212.2.89
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2693, 12 February 1916, Page 13
Word count
Tapeke kupu
537LEAKAGE OF WAR SECRETS Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2693, 12 February 1916, Page 13
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.