STATE FIRE INSURANCE.

Shannon News, 3 August 1923, Page 2

STATE FIRE INSURANCE.

- 6 ■ REBATE OF 15 PER CENT. IN * PREMIUMS. This New Zealand State Fife Insurance Office announces a bonus rebate during the current year of 15 per cent, on existing rates. Thei decision serves to draw attention to the success of this branch of State activity. The State Fire Office opened for business in 1905, eighteen years ago, with a capital of £2,000 (long since repaid, with interest). The establishment of the office resulted in rates being reduced by an average of over 20 per cent., and the total saving effected in the last eighteen years has amounted in the aggregate to not less than £3,000,000. The office has accumulated funds of over £350,000, after paying £102,000 in income-tax and providing all necessary reserves for unearned premiums and investment fluctuations. All investments are made within the Dominion. The working expenses of the office are extremely low and compare very favourably with those of competing offices. For 1921 the ratio was 31.07 per cent., -while the Dominion average for all offices was 39.7 per cent., and in 1922 the management was able to reduce the already low ratio by over 2 per cent. The popularity of the State Fire Office with the public may be gauged by the fact that it has the support of by far the greatest number of individual policyholders of any fire insurance office doing business in New Zealand, and has in a brief eighteen years secured the second largest income.