FIRE INSURANCE RATES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2544, 3 July 1909, Page 5

FIRE INSURANCE RATES.

WILL PROBABLY BE RAISED. [Purt Prims Association.! AUCKLAND, July 2. The statement that fire insurance rates are to be raised by from 10 per cent, to 13 per cent, throughout the Dominion is not denied in Auckland insurance cimes. but reticence is displayed on the subject. It is well known that for some time past, owing to the enormous losses occurring annually, rates must go up sooner or later. This fact has been kept steadily in view by •the insurance companies, with a view of raising the rates when a favorable opportunity offered. x>o information was obtainable last night as to when tho new rates will be brought into force. The matter has been slowly ooining to a head, however. HON. G. FOWLDS INTERVIEWED. WELLINGTON, July 2. Interviewed by a _ ‘New Zealand Times” reporter, the Minister in charge of the State Fire Insurance Department, tho Hon". G. Fowlds, said the position in regard to the insurance rates was that when the State Department was started they fixed the rates for risks on dwelling houses at 10 per cent below those current, believing that to be as low as they would be justified in going as an experiment until experience had shown whether the Department .could be carried on safely on. that basis. This was met by a cut by the companies below the then existing rates of 33£ per cent, and, _of course, the State Office had no option left but to cut down to the level tho. companies liad fixed. Experience has, of course, proved that those rates are disastrous from an insurance point of view. Last year the State Office made a considerable loss on business which was done, and all the companies in New Zealand were badly hit. So that it is quite clear that existing rates can not be maintained without heavy losses all round. Ido not think it would be' justifiable to run the State Insurance Office in such a way as to make it a burden cm the genera L-taxpayers of the Dominion. The only way to avoid that will be to get a reasonable increase in rates to meet the risks we have to run. The function of the State Office must be to see that the rates for insurance are kept within reasonable bounds.