The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-07 00:00:00

FIRE BRANCH.

The unfavourable reports of almost every insurance com-
pany of magnitude for the year 1864, and the widely known
fact of the extensive fires which have marked that year,
and unhappily extended almostlo the present time, together
with the statement, in the Report' of the Royal in August
last, of the unfavourable aspect at that period of the state
of the accounts for the first half of the year, will have pre-
pared the minds of the shareholders for a suspension of the
usual notice made at these meetings of a fair portion of
profit attending each year's transactions in the fire branch.
It forms, indeed, a very apt illustration of the fact that
the results of a fire business must not be regarded by the
events of a single year, but of several, that the report of
the year 1863, which announced the largest per centage of
profit ever obtained by the company from its fire business,
should be followed by a year without any profit at all.
It is believed, however, that so extensive have been the
disastrous conflagrations at home and abroad in the last
18 months, that the " Royal," -would seem to be placed in
no unfavourable contrast with many of its sompotitors in
the final results of the whole period.
Various reasons might be assigned for the unfavourable
position generally of fire insurance business at tho present
time. Undue competition by the establishment of com-
panies, not observant of the experience of their older cotem-
poraries, and possibly deluded by a temporary and acci-
dental exemption from the ordinary ratio of loss which
usually attends the transactions of the first year of a new
company, new and far greater elements of danger which
are appearing, and are not yet provided against, and other
known and significant causes increasing here and abroad,
are among the items creating a new temporary phase in
fire insurance business, and which only require combined
skill and experience to watch and counteract.
It is satisfactory to feel assured that these elements, being
known and truly appreciated, can speedily be remedied, if
the proper means be applied, and doubtless unity of pur-
pose and action on the part of the existing offices will soon
overcome the difficulties. The evils are not confined to the
country alone, nor yet to North America, nor to any
other foreign country specially, but have equally spread
over all.

Taking, therefore, the united business in all these places
without distinction, and considering the unfavourable in-
fluences existing, and acting more or less against all the
theßritish and foreign insurance companies, almost without
an exception, it is hardly an unsatisfactory announcement
to make, that the business of this year, crediting the in-
terest received, results in a loss which diminishes the profit
and loss account by £4,968 9s. 7d. But inasmuch as the re-
serve fund is increased, from ether causes by the sum of
£7,355 for interest and premiums on sharee, even that
small loss is more than compensated by the increase of the
latter account.

It was anticipated, sem° time before its close, that there
would have been a far greater loss on the transactions of
the year ; but the expansion of the business to an unex-
pected extent led to such an improvement in the position
of the account as to bring the loss ultimately to the small
amount just announced.
As regards expansion, the operations of the year have
been, in point of fact, more than usually successful. Tho
premium received in the year 1883 was £341,688 ; tho pre-
miums of 1864 amounted to £406,404 ; showing an in-
cease of £64,736, the largest advance the company has
made in any single year since its establishment.
The returns of duty paid to Government, ordered to be
printed by the House of Commons, en the motion of the
Chairman of this company, exhibit a like result. If the
duty had been retained at 3s. per cent., the increase of
amount to be paid by the Roy& in 1864, compared with
the amount which it paid in 1863, would have been larger
than any former advance of that kind made in any simi-
lar period of time.

With these facts before thew, even the circumstance
of the aspect of the six months of the present year being
unfavourable, and producing little or no profit, does not
diminish in the slightest degree the conviction of the
directors in the temporary character of the pre-
sent state of things, nor lessen their confidence
in the futuro prosperity of the company. Tak-
ing the whole period of its existence, few companies, if
any, have had more cause of thankfulness for an almost
uninterrupted success; and the fact that for a few months
it has had to share moderately in the adverse experience
which has fallen on almost all companies alike only leads
to the belief that the temporary evil will have a tendency
to effect its own cure, and that the probability of an equal
ratio of success in the futuro to that which has been expe-
rienced in the past, exists in precisely the same degree as
before.