STATE FIRE INSURANCE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12619, 2 December 1926, Page 6

STATE FIRE INSURANCE

QUESTION OF REBATE OLD FIGURE STANDS. The question of the Stale Fire rebate for 1927 has been considered and the board of the State Fire Insurance Office has decided to continue the present 121 per cent, rebate for a further 12 months. Since August, 1923, when the rebate system was instituted, up to the end of this year, the department will have rebated to its policyholders out of profits about £74,000. In view of the fact that the insurance companies have each year adopted the same rebate as the State Office, the saving to the insuring public as d whole amounts to a very large sum indeed. State Fire rebates are dependent upon underwriting profits, and while the experience of the department up to the present warrants u continuation of the 12J per cent, rebate, it is necessary to point out that there has been a marked increase in fires throughout the Dominion' within the last twelve months. Fire is dissipating the assets of this country to an extent which gives cause for serious concern. Property to the value of over a million pounds was destroyed during 1925, and it is estimated that considerably more than this amount will have gone up in smoke during 1926. A large part of this loss could have been prevented. It is, unfortunately, a popular belief that fire insurance makes up atleast a part of the loss. This M fallacious. From a national point of view loss by fire is irreparable; all that insurance does is to levy a tax on the community for the” benefit of the individual loser. Sooner or later the community as a whole pays the fire loss bill, and nearly every fire causes the deviation of capital for replacement pnrposes which otherwise might be used to increase the wealth and prosperity of the community.