Arizona citizen., 1878-01-25
Fire Insurance Iu Arizona.

With telegraphs, railways and life insurance, comes fire insurance. Fire insurers are very careful in taking risks in newly settled sections, and they should be as a rule. We would mol carry the idea that fire insurance i: wholly new here and just being intro duced for the first time in Arizona, but that from the best of our information, the first systematic examination of property with view to offer terms tc all who care to insure, is now being made
 Wm. Sexton, special agent of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company of San Francisco, is now in the Ter rtory, making diagrams of the streets business houses and what they contain an3 what materials are stored or kept near each, iD the several towns. He recently did this work quite thoroughly in Florence and also in Tucson as we are informed, and has passed northward 10 do the same thing for Phenix and Prescott. Mr. Sexton says his diagrams are carefully transferred from his field book of sketches to the permanent rec ords of the company, SO that when local agents take apOlicy or agree to take one on property and report the same, the head office may at least approximately know the locality, surroundings and contents of buildings. Such systematic preliminaries indicate care and inspire confidence in the management; yet with all this, property owners should not tail to investigate the character of the officers and solidity of the company before insuring. Itis u~eless to insure if surety is not certain. The Fireman s Fund has stood well. Its officers are known as solid men of California. They doubtless court investigation of their reliability and methods. It IS to the methods of operations and rates in various localities, that our people should direct theIr special attention. In ArIZona, rates should vary from one quarter to ten per cent per annum, and we understand this to be NIT. Sexton's opinion. A wooden town can not have the low rates Of an adobe one. Florence, we believe, has never yet had a fire which destroyed property worth mentioning, and the same is, we pre- sume, true of Tucson, Yuma and Phe- nix, and in the aature of things will continue to be true of them; and while it may thus far be true of Prescott, the town IS almost wholly built of wood and therefore liable to almost total destruction in case of fire in a dry tune with any wind. Fire can hardly spread in adobe towns. l. may burn ID the contents of single buildings and not harm an l;em beyond.
 These remarks are made to awake proper thought among business men disposed 10 insure their property. Men often insure because agents urge them Co do so, and perhaps, too, often on the representations of agents. It is well enough to think the subject over and canvass the merits or demerits, if any there be, of a company before pat roniz;ng it.
 For some years, life insurance com panies have done some business in Ar. Izona, and we have not heard of any such companies failing to make good their losses. Quite recently Mrs. Hop kins of Tucson, as telegraphcd to THE CITIZEN, was paid the full amount due her by the Missouri Valley Company, and we are assured that it was a god. send to her and her family of small children. Insurance is therefore val uable. It often saves men, women and children from want, and enables busi- ness men to continue business on good credit immediately following fires, which made ashes of their property but the constant reports of failures of banks and of fire and life insurance companies, and the sending of their officers to penitentiarieS for frauds, per juries, etc, suggests caution in avail ing ourself of the benefits of even this valuable machinery. However, these very facts indicate a more healthful condition of insurance.