The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-10-24
AMERICAN INSURANCE.
MIR. GEO. T. HOPES Address.

Company of New YORK, WAS oeAVefeu ooioio
the late Convention of Insurance Commits
sioners. and is well worthy the thoughtful
consideration Of the public as well as OF the
underwriters of this country:
Let US consider the disproportionate loss we
sustain in this country, as com pareo VIII
other civilized nations, so much SO as 10 De
an alarming thing in its present. ana nos'
alarming as to its future.
The averagesloss by iressin this country Is
60 per cent of the premiums. The same aV,
eraee will apply to Great Britain, France and
Germany-the only difference being less
than one per cent. But what story doeS
this tell? But what do we charge for preml-
ums as compared with them? According 10
the writer in the Bulletin, our charges are
eight times as great as theirs; that Is perhaps
excessive, but, as fair medium, we Will taAe
six times What is the result! Our net
earned wealth, as compared with other CIVIL
lied nations, should burn up SIX times DIS
much as other civilized nations. While We
have au abundance of soil and fresh acres,
we may be able to endure it; but we are grow
ing poor comparatively, and by and by, as We
become crowded. unless We can avert 1t, we
shall become poor as nation to certain de-
gree, on account OF these excessive losses.
It should be the business of insurance COM
panies, by means of scheduling and other
devices, to endeavor to prevent this absurd
and disproportionate loss. There's much you
can do by fostering anything that tenos 10
make insurance substantial, and by urging
better laws; but there are directions, in which
it is needed that you should understand and
take more decided ground. policy forty
years ago was not half SO long as 1t Is to-day.
Forty years ago insurance companies might
be cited upon the proceedings OF the English
courts Our laws have been necessarily re-
constructed to meet the wants OF the altered
condition of things, as to lnsur 7ce what
is the interest of the community Is the inter
est of the companies; IL a. is wnat Is wanted
to be known. Hence, when you complain OF
long policy, just go back and find who dad
il, and why it was done, and you Will lind
that it was done in the interests Of the great
mass of the community.
A nudge, well esteemed, honest not fool
in the law, decided in the State of New York,
within q few years past, and l believe he knew
it was not law, but he got the wrong impress
sion thatlhecould serve justice better by max
ing such a decision-decided that where
policy declares that, if the premises be occu-
MED for purposes hazardous or extra hazard
Gus, the policy shall be vitiated, that was void;
for there were two and but two, distinctions
in hazards; so that, if the premises were used
as powder magazine, camphene factory,
or cabinet makers shop, it was no matter;
these distinctions were put into the policy
only so that the company might know what to
charge Bad law, wasn't it, sir? 50 Judge
Woodruff, who has gone to God within the
past few DAYS, thought when it came before
the Court OF Appeals, of which he was a
member.
In about ten lines he set it very straight.
Rut. gentlemen, such errors do not always
find q Judge Woodruff behind them, and
hence the building up OF policy, and the en-
deayor to make it SO plain that judge,
Though fool, need not err the Now,
the Legis atures try to do all they Can to make
it east for swindlers to get money out OF In
surance companies, OF which tendency there
has not been more conspicuous illustration
than the attempt to leglslate that no case shall
be appealed to the higher courts. You can
not get Justice in the local courts. In the face
of ali the precedents that were ever known.
and of all the proof on earth as to these haz-
ards, you can not get justice. See who looses.
| Do YOU suppose the insurance companies want
| lawsuits? | will give you fair sample. The
| company which 1 know most about, which
has over twelve hundred losses a year
which of you doubts that out of every hun
bred there are five that ought not to be paid
out of every year? Well, consequently you
expect us to have sixty lawsuits In the year
out of that. We do not have fifty, not ter,
and Just that is true of ninety nine per cent
| of the companies of the United States. They
paw when they ought not; they pay to the
damage of the community Why is it the in
terest of the community? They have got to pay
the premiums-that is one thing, as sure as
YOU live. Every swindle gets into the pre-
MUM. The only earthly objection we have,
as business men, to these swindles is when
they build so big fire in some city that 1t
annihilates us; but your sporadic swindles-
the mora of them the better for our profit.
We can make the premiums rise faster than
they will burn in individual cases, and 1t Is
purely in the interes s of the community that
insurance companies hesitate but they ought
| to stop twenty times where they do once.
But there is the other part that alluded to
when began the solid part OF my statement,
| if any part of it can be called solid They
not only lose in this direct manner, by means
of the premiums they have to pay, but they
| lose in the encouragement to fraud, which
leads to the destruction OF SIX times al much
property in America as in any other clvlllz9o
nation-a national loss, greater than we can
comprehend In these two branches you per
ceive that the interests of the community are
against those things which foster swindline
and interfere with the exercise OF proper
| Justice with regard 10 tneSe people, aNel
that $40, 900 is paid to parties who ought mo-
to have it, by insurance companies, where
one dalor is withheld. I mean those figures
You may ask what Causes these fires
There are several reasons. One. We
have very violent extremes of climate
in many parts of our country, anc
our houses are obliged to be built so tina
they can resist ten degrees below zero ano
be cool at one hundred degrees Fahrenheit
| won't stop to tell you why, bat 1 think you
will see that this requires construction no
conducive to longevity (as my friends in the
life insurance would say of houses. Ther
we build higher and deeper than most PEG
pies on the earth, far less substantially; thei
we are reckless naturally. Everything ha
, been produced so abundantly that we throw
up row of houses and let it take it's chances
get the profit out Of it while it lives, and ex
pect when it burns up some insurance com
pany to pay for it; for nothing here is mad
to last long - nothing lasts one hundret
years. New York is not the same at all tina
it was in my boyhood.
Another thing connected with this vast an