Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-03-04
ENSURANCE.
The Pending LegislatiOn-What 1t will
Accomplishing Ruin that Ig-
nOrance may Induce-But
There is Vet Time to
Call a Halt

! new OrK bNEetin: somehow the aver
| age legislator appears to have chronic dis
position to hamper and harrass the insurance
interest whenever opportunity offers; and
| where the opportunity does not offer, invent
| I've enterprise opens the way all the same.
| This winter, all over the country, there has
| been violent eruption of this sort of hostil-
| lty to the insurance companies. What with
| the burdens Of taxation, deposit require
| ments, local license extortlons, enactments
| to override or interfere with policy contracts,
prohibitions against carrying suits into the
| Fed raj courts, and all sorts of codi6ed crud-
| ties, the underwriters certainly appear to
| have already a rather hard time of it. The
| anomalous feature of the case, moreover,
that the fewer a States own compa-
MES are, or the more improbable the
business within the borders, the surer is such
State to make things warm and worrisome
for the companies of other States whose
managers show any willingness to sell a
Trustworthy indemnity. The idea Of pro
tectIng' a States citizens from possible los
by systematic efforts TO harrass and drive
away the better class of insurance companies
from that State is essentially absurd. Yet
this, IN effect is what the average legislator
in certain of the western Substantially
Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio and Missouri
seems bent on doing just now. Tennessee
made narrow escape last week from being
left without any insurance worthy OF the
valued policy bill passed by the legislature,
there would have been a hegira of other
State and foreign insurance companies from
that State which would have made Tennes-
see property-owner5 howl with terror and
have left her merchants as bankrupt of credit
as Memphis herself. But right on the heels
of the odious law which has been vetoed,
the same legislature has passed another,
which, if not strangled by veto, will
give all other State and foreign compa-
nIes Just as good reason as before to
leave Tennessee in body. This last enact
ment proposes to compel all companies from
outside to deposit twenty-five thousand dol
lars in United States bonds with the State
treasurer as the condition of authority to Is
sue policies to citizens of Tennessee. If the
State OF tennessee was In prosperous con-
dition as to credit and finance, or if, like
many other States, she presented a omis-
ing field of profit for Insurance companies,
there might be some slight pretext for i'm
posing rational conditions upon the privilege
of doing business there. But, in point of
fact, no State in the Union is really so de-
pendent for safety and credit upon sound in
surance companies, and, as the statistics
prove, no State is less inviting as an insurance
field. In 1877, the outside companies doing
business there were able to net only fifteen
thousand and ninety-two dollars upon gross
premium lnct me of four hundred and eighty
one thousand eight hdndred and seventy
seven dollars, and in 1873 they actually paid
out about eighty thousand dollars more than
their premium receipts In losses and expenses
in that State. Yet, in the face of facts and
figures like these, her legislature has the as
surance to try to extort from each outside
company a deposit of twenty-five thousand
dollars by way of guarantee, we must as
sumo, that no com pany shall try to get away
from so proftless field. 1t would seem
as If the expansive power Of the human
cheek could have no better illustration
than this. But apart from the incongruity
of legislation OF this kind by a common
wealth in Tennessee's condition, this deposit
and license law is absurd and negotiable on
general principles. In fact, the whole sys-
TEN of insurance deposit laws, as between
the several States of the Union, is wrong in
theory and fallacious in practice. For, if
every State had these laws, a company with
less than two million dollars to make depos-
its with woulS be unable to do an agency BUSH
ness GOV erIng the entire field; and, even then,
after making the required deposits, would be
likely to need another two million dollars, at
least, wherewIth to keep its credit good at
home, and make its policies OF any sort of
value to the holder. In the Tennessee case
there Is the manifest absurdity OF compelling
every company, little and big, to make the
same deposit and pay the same license fee
whether the company has five million or
two hundred thousand dollars capital, and
whether it does business in the State of
fifty thousand or FIVE thousand dollars per
annum. As to security, the deposit In this
instance, as always, tends rather the other
way, since an insurance company must OBJ
viously be stronger when having its assets
in aggregate at home and under its own con-
troll, than if these assets are dribeted around
the country In the dubious custody of the
average State treasurer. If Tennessee is
anxious to make the number of insurance
competitors conveniently small flor them
selves), and SO secure advanced insurance
rates, less revenue from a diminished num-
Der of Companies, and deficiency of insur-
ance protbcliOn for her citizens-wny, all that
need be done to bring these things about is
that Governor Marks shall put his signature
to this bill. The legislature has done its
share of the mischief, and the governor can
complete the work by a stroke of his pen.
Upon the whole, we doubt if he will care to
take the responsibility. And yet, somehow,
we are inclined to wish this game of grab
might be played all the way through, Just to
give the insurance companies a good excuse
for teaching Tennessee lesson in political
economy which she happens to need just
now, and whose effects would be useful in
other States whose Legislators appear to be
going daft on the subject of insurance laws.
A Hitch in the Spanish Ministry on
Cuban A mairs.
MADRID, March Sit is reported that
General Martinez Campos and the cabinet
not having arrived at any agreement on Gu
ban affairs, the ministers will advise the king