The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, APRIL 28. ALLEGED ACCIDENT INSURANCE.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 April 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, APRIL 28. ALLEGED ACCIDENT INSURANCE.

(With whieh i& Incorporated The fsdhape Post tnd Wal3atW> News).

A sawmill worker has sent, to us what he supposed was au insurance policy, for which he paid eighty-six shillings, and which is about as worthless as any scrap of paper that was ever consigned to any scrap heap. The formidable-looking document appears to be got up to deceive, for it sets out ■most carefully and fully all the benefits the insurer shall be entitled to in case of partial and total disablement from result of accident, then in an inconspicuous corner is the impression of an ordinary common rubber stamp which invalidates all the printed gush in the body of the document, and all the huge flourishing letters with which it is ornamented. The rubber stamp tells the insurer that if his employer has insured him under the Compensation to "Workers Act, lie will have no claim against, the issuers of the policy for which he has paid four pounds six shillings. Very many men working in the country are quite educated: mainare subjects of friendly nations naturalised in New Zealand, and (o take four pounds six shillings from such men for an alleged policy which the issuing company knows with approximate certainty is Avorsc than worthless should be unlawful, if it is not so. In ninty cases out of a hundred when these bush workers are pestered to insure they do not know whether their employers have a policy covering them agaiust accidents, in fact, they do not know that any such protection would have any more influence over their provision against the rainy day than they would have in fixing the Crack O' Doom. The man who has learned that accident insurance is not what its agents crack it up to be is a well-known workman named Charles Carlson. This mar; had his hand so terribly injured that work was impossible with it. and he naturally presented liis claim to (he Insurance Officer, who smiled blandly, and pointed him to a rubber stamp impression amongst the large type of I he title of the policy, which (eld Carlson that he had paid his four pounds six shillings for nothing. Carlson felt that, he had been what is commonly called "had, 7 ' and he Consulted a solicitor, but got no 'encouragement that the law would help him after what evidence the Accident Society Officers would be likely to give. Now. this looks very like an insurance swindle, and we warn all workers to carefully look to the nature of the Accident Insurance policies they think they have, for not one of them is worth the paper it is printed on if m n Employers' Liability Insurance is current when they meet with an accident. It has hitherto been understood that any second insurance of this kind would, at least, make up for the wages which the insurer receives while working, but this rubber stamp clause, no matter what the employers' liability is. what, the insurer's wages are, of what amount the company who issues the alleged policy takes from the unsuspecting man who thinks he is providing aga.inst misfortune, that he can get. nothing for the premium he has paid, be it little or much. From their point of view, these workmen are subjects of the lowestdown, fraud, and to say the most, for

such insurance it does not appeal to one's spirit of fairness and honest dealing. The workhiginan, in his want of "know-ledge of law in such matters, seems to be regarded as fair game for every class of exploiter. We should like to know whether Accident Insurance Companies publicly notified that they would no longer make up a man's full wages under the risk they have taken, because it is a very serious matter to the worker who has, in all probability, a wife and family dependent upon him. and because the amount received under Employer's Liability alone means extreme privation, if not starvation, to the families of such insurers. When did the law permit these accident policies to be made into bogus insurance? In the list of questions on the proposal form for accident insurance is the prospective insurer asked whether he is covered by an Employer's Liability Insurance? When was the rubber stamp nullification of an accident policy made legal? When Carlson's four pounds six shillings were taken way not the Company tolerably certain that the sawmillor for whom he was working would have a policy covering all his workmen? Was Carlsou told by the Company, when it took his four pounds six shillings, that he could receiye. no benefit therefrom on account, of accident against which he was insuring? The premium paid by Carlson, according to the receipt he received, was a special one. Was it special from a maximum or a minimum point of view, and, if from a maximum, was it not because Carlson was engaged at work of a more than ordinarily dangerous character? Carlson believed that he would be entitled to receive from the Insurance Company £3OO in ease of total disablement or death resulting from an accident while, at his dangerous work; that he would receive £l5O for partial disablement; £2 a week for temporary dsablement. and so on, but it was all bogus, poor Carlson is a sad. but wiser, man than he was when the Company took his premium and handed him the formidable-looking sheet of decorated paper that was his alleged title to the quid pro quo for his four pounds six shillings. There should, of course, be some infinitesimal value in such a policy, for instance, if while attending church on Sunday the building collapsed and fell on him, a seat was to jump up and hit him, or the organ was to suddenly explode and disable him. he might, if another brand of rubber stamp did not prove fatal, get something in return for his four pounds six shillings. Our laws can punish a woman who tickles the curiosity of another woman by reading her palm, and. in the opinion of a J.P. oversteps (he fortune-telling mark ever so slightly, but- it apparently allows the issue of alleged insurance policies t'hnt are almost sure to prove of no value whatever, through no fault of the innocent workman who trustingly pays his four pounds s'x shillings. , Not. only is the workman "done" for the money he pays, but the distressing feature is he finds himself almost penniless while; earning nothing, and having additional expenditure, as the result of his accident, to bear. Such insurance is a veritable trap. Is the working man so criminally inclined that the law should preclude him insuring for anything above what the Employers' Liability provides? If that is the opinion of our House of Lawmakers it is certainly time there, was a change. We have given no indication of the Office with which our correspondent thought he was making provision against the evil day sawmill hands ever live in dread

of. boon use its management ma}- yet decide thn.l in a bona fide case like this (lip dictum of the rubber stamp may bo departed from in the man 's favour.