The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1877-04-07
THIS Insurance. BUSINESS.

The general interest in the insurance
business throughout the country, and the
earnest inquiry into its details, betokens
q purpose on the part Of the public TO
settle tor itself the question whether in.
sursnce insures. In our own community,
the destruction by fire of one of our
largest hotels and the hitch in the ad-
justment by the insurance companies of
their losses upon the building, has local
lied and deepened the interest felt in
this question.
It seems to us that by going back to
first principles, we can more readily
reach right conclusions in this as in other
controversies. In moral philosophy
it is laid down as q law controlling the
ful6llment of certain obligations, that
the promissor must keep his promise in
the manner in which the prom
isee has . reasonable right
to understand It, This excludes
everything like quibble, technicality or
equivocstion. Applying this rule to In
surance risks and the settlement OF in
surance losses, what does it mean? Why
simply that when A., In consideration OF
a premium paid him by B., agrees to pay
B. $4,000, in case of the destruction of
BIS house by fire, it is the right of b. in
the event of such destruction to
expect such payment and 1t
is the duty OF A. to make
it. A. cannot escape by setting up that
the property has been misdescribed, that
it had nine front windows instead OF ten,
or two story kitchen instead of three
story kitchen, as described. Nor should
he be allowed a release upon the pay
ment of less than the full sum, by set.
ting up that the property was worth less
than the sum named in the policy.
If premium is charged and q policy
written upon property for more than its
value, the insurance company shonld be
held to pay in full, for this reason, if for
no other, that in this way only can
dangerous system of managing the in
surance business be broken up. 1t is no
answer to say that insurance companies
are not expected to know the actual value
of property they insure. AS
matter of fact they do know,
and as a matter of public safety they
ought to be required to know whether
they are carrying risks of such excessive
amount in proportion to value, as to
prove an inducement TO carelessness or
something worse on the part of the
owners. This view becomes stronger in
a city like Wheeling, where insurance
companies have mapped the insursbe
property, and estimated its value piece
by piece.
To say that insurance may be written
in excess of value, and only actual value
he recovered in case Of loss, is to offer 8
premium on the taking of eYtrsvagant
risks and the collection of exhorbitant
premiums. For if man iDsures for
$40 600 property worth only $4,000,
and on which in the event of loss he can
only collect $4,000, then he is simply
charged an excessive premium of
25 per cent, which he cannot recover and
for which the insurance company renders
him no possible equivalent. Or if there be
no additional risk beyond actual value,
then it IS a matter of no consequence TO
the insurance company or the agent
for how large sum a policy may
be written. Indeed there would be an
incentive to the taking of risks on
excessive valuations, for IN that way
premiums and percentages would be col
lected by companies, or agents, for which
not the slightest hazard was taken.
The old-fsshioned theory of insurance
WAS that both insured and insurer should
be interested in theprotection OF property,
and to this end that no property should
be insured for more than two thirds of
its value. We do not see that
later plans of full insurance are
any improvement upon this, nor do we
see that there is any way possible to pre-
vent the taking of excessive risks, except
to make insurance companies pay all
such risks where there is loss. That will
check the evil, and it will enforce degree
of care on the part of insurance men,
that will never separate the interest of
the property-owner from that of the
company which carries his policies.
FINAL ALLOTMENT.
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