Extortionate Rates of Insurance.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 139, 18 May 1885, Page 3

Extortionate Rates of Insurance.

(To the Editor of Feilding B?ar.) Sir, — lii talking- to an insurance ugcutthe other day iv Marlon, I wac simply astonished to find that the various companies were* doing business m that town fr at least forty pet cent less than m Feildiug, or (ax the agents hero .say) any town on this, side of the Kangitikei River. Now, Sir, I have l»e«n wondering " how cau these things he." The Marton agent explained that it whs because of the lively competition of the agents there But why is the cotnpetitiou allowed to have this effect ? Does it not look as if the agents thuro had determined unitedly to resist the monstrous imposition of ihe ruinous rates other towns groan beneath. Whatever mode of action on thoir {tart brought around tfo de-irattle a result, we are shut up to this concla.sion, that the local agents m the various towns have it entirely m their hands to stop the wholesale robbery of the policy Uoldeis by the companies. And where this is not done, the agents simply sell themselves and their neighbours for the miserable profits accruing- from the business done by them. In speaking to one local agent about the mutter, he cheerfully agreed to' unite with the others m Feilding and stop the swindle. 1 would suggest that insurers who are not agents, at once to hold a meeting and boldly reqneat tho local agents to do as others hare done elsewhere. — I am, Ac, Indignant.