FIRE INSURANCE PREMIUMS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9070, 10 February 1908, Page 5

FIRE INSURANCE PREMIUMS.

Press Association. Wellington, February 9. “Will the rates go up, and, if so, when?” was the question put to the manager of a local fire insurance company yesterday. “No.” was the emphatic answer. “They must not while we have the State office as a competitor. Do you think there is a Minister in the Cabinet who would have the courage to raise the State rates when the business, if it doss not show a handsome profit, does not show a loss? But wait until the State office has had five years’ experience, and then come to me again. That some of the English offices will keenly feel the two Canterbury fires I have uo doubt, but others will regard the losses as merely incidental to the business. It is”all a 'question of management whether English offices are severely hit or not. Now, assuming the insurance losses on the Canterbury fires (Timafu and Christchurch) at £300,000, and assuming that the fire, income from the whole of the companies doing business in New Zealand amounts to £450,000'a vear, and charging 33 1-3 per cent, for working 'expenses against the premium income, and etsimatiug losses by hush fires and other causes at £50,000, the result of these two fires alone will he that the premium income, from now on to the end of the year, is absorbed, and the deficiency will not he met by new business. Nevertheless, I do not. think the rates will go up yet, and 1 know of no steps taken to bring them up.” Inquiries in other quarters showed that, as one manager put it, “For some time past insurance companies’ losses in the Dominion have been paid with premiums collected elsewhere.” Losses in Canterbury last year amounted to £119,000, and in Wellington £50,000, while at the close of 1906 the Lamhton Quay fire cost £BO,OOO in insurance.