FIRE BRIGADES. 5hould Insurance Companies Assist to Maintain Them?

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 14, 6 October 1900, Page 6

FIRE BRIGADES. should Insurance Companies Assist to Maintain Them?

IT has for many years been a vexed question whether or not insurance companies should contribute to the maintenance of fire brigades. City councillors hold the view strongly that they should, and so also do the majority of the public, but the insurance people are of a wholly different opinion. They argue that fire brigades are not an unmixed blessing to insurance companies, because they lower the premiums, and, by creating a greater sense of security in the minds of property owners, cause many people to refrain from insuring. * * • This is the line followed in a very neat piece of special pleading from the pen of Mr J. B. Graham, solicitor, of Auckland, which has just been issued in pamphlet form. Mr Graham also raises the question why a fire insurance company should be saddled with the cost of lessening the risk, any more than a marine insurance company. Applying the same principle, he says, ought not every marine insurance company to pay a direct subscription to the cost of lighthouses, beacons, buoys, pilots, signal stations, and Government meteorologists, all of which are in existence for the express purpose of lessening the risk ? This is a palpable point scored by Mr Graham. m • » Supposing the case of one of our bar harbours, say Kaipara, Tairua, or Hokianga, where without a steam tug the risk is great, he asks whether insurance companies should be compelled to provide one. Also, if a dangerous roadway exists, should the accident companies be compelled to improve it, whether they like to do so or not ? Again, if the elixir of life were discovered, and its cost were expensive, should the life companies be compelled to defray the cost ? There are all very pertinent queries. # w # Mr Graham argues with some force that insurance companies already make their contributions towards the cost of fire brigades in the indirect form of reductions in premiums, which are a relief to the taxpayers on whose shoulders the burden of fire brigades maintenance falls. At the same time, a fire being in progress, is it the insurance companies or the property owners who profit most if £100,000 worth of property is saved ? Too often, it is the insurance people, for the property owners, if sufficiently

insured, would frequently prefer to part with the property and get the insurance money in full. However, the clause saddling insurance companies with fire brigade liability is no longer in the Municipal Corporations Bill. Therefore, what matter ?