Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-02-14
HEARING ON INSURANCE.

Affairs and Insurance gave another hearing
on Saturday morning, to parties DESTROYS of
expressing their views concerning the matter
OF taxing foreign insurance companies. The
committee met at eight o'clock.
MIR. Prentiss Loring of Portland of the
firm fLoring & Thurston, addressed the Com
mittce. He began by saying he hardly ex-
pected to add much to what had already been
said against the proposition to tax insurance
companies, but as he had been chosen men,
Der of the committee from Portland, he de-
sired to give his testimony. He would con-
fine himself mainly to the fire companies.
He spoke of the relations which insurance
agents sustain to the companies and to the
people. He contended that agents are not
merely agents of the companies but of the
people as well. Agents are indeed guardians
of trust for the companies but they are also
bound to be faithful to the people, and those
agents are the most successful who look quite
| rs much to the interests of the insured as to
the insuring company. Agents are middle
men-dependent much upon one party as
the other. He said he stated this to explain
why agents have appeared before the com
mittee. They are here as business men,
looking after the interests of the great cor
porations whose management in this State is
largely reposed in their hands, yet not less do
they appear here for the protection of their
patrons who own or manage all the real and
the personal property interests of the State.
| We do not come here to ask charity, but to
oppose unjust legislation, while we sanction
and desire to promote the enactment of such
laws as shall be equitable and just He asked
for law so just and practicable that the in
surance men of the State and the Examiner
may work in harmony instead of in discord.
He believed the Portland bill" better than
Mr.. Panes. 1t was carefully prepared by
practical insurance men, and in its preparation
its authors looked quite as much to protection
of the insuring public as to the welfare of the
companies. He said Mr.. Panes bill is OPP
posed by 2300 capitalists and large insurers.
| There is much in it that is unjust and UNI
necessary The speaker named sections 3,
s, IL, II and 10 as being peculiarly objection
able, and as to some features cruel and unjust.
He secuted the idea that the remonstrants
had signed their names unadvisedly, notwith-
standing Mr.. Paine's statement that they did
not know 1.-THE actual truth in the matter"
He said the promoters of the remonstrance
desired to do only what was right; they have
not been perpetrating fraud upon the people
by misrepresentation.
| He said he opposed Mr.. Paine's measure
for many reasons. The fact exists, and the
| figures prove that Maine has been an unprofit-
able field to fire companies-not for one, two
or three years,-but for the entire term of
their agencies here, ranging from five to
thirty years. He said twenty four fire COM
panies, summing up their entire business in
Maine over terms OF from five to thirty years,
report their losses on risks taken in this State
to be in the aggregate nearly 50 900, 900 more
than the entire premiums received Several
other companies have had similar expert
encc, only two have reported profit
Immediately after the Portland fire in 1866,
four of these companies withdrew from the
State. The remaining twenty are the leading
| insurance companies in the country. Two
| fire companies have received death-b blow in
this State, and another has been crippled.
He quoted from Mr.. Paines annual report
showing that the risks taken by all the for
eign insurance companies in the State during
1868 amounted to $50, 6l3,75 policies, 81,
ga, of this amount these twenty companies
carried S36, 570,659, and 2O,956 policies
three fourths of the whole insurance of the
State. This fact, said Mr.. Loring, taken in con-
nection with the one that every stock fire in
surance company ever organized in this State
has either failed or retired from business-so
there is not one in the State-is a most con-
elusive argument. If this is lone Of the
safest and best fields for insurers" why
these results? And why do not our capitalists
take the field, occupy it and exclude others
by every legal barrier, retaining all the prof
its of the business within the State? Why is
there not single stock fire insurance compa-
ny in our State? Because it is an unprofta-
BILE field. Taken as whole, insurance rates
have been and still are lower than in most
other States. In our State are more wooden
buildings and less appliances for extinguish-
ing fires. Now in view of the Improbable
ness, the fact that these companies are willing
to furnish and hazard their capital where our
citizens will not,-in view not only Of their
equitable actions, but of their generosity I'M
paralleled in the history Of any class of cor
porations, in times of disaster when great con-
fagrations swept over Passport, Belfast,
Augusta and Portland,-is it wise? is it ex-
pedient? is it consistent with the interests of
the great body of insurers to levy tax upon
these or any Of these companies doing bust
ness in our State? If it is done, what will be
the result? If the experience of all the lead
ing companies shows that thus far they have
made no money in Maine, and now the bur-
den not only of fees but also of taxes is inn
posed, they must do one Of two things; with-
drae; or add the tar to their premiums-in
which event the Examiner has merely to col
lect of the companies what they as matter OF
salf nres eryation have been forced to collect