Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-02-16
INSURANCE LEGISLATION.

EDS RECORD UNION 1 crave the use Of
your columns to say few words in behalf
Of local insurance companies and in re-
spouse to what | consider an unjust
editorial in your paper of to-day. Your
charge of greed and want OF care will not
lay against them all, and is therefore I'M
just. do not know from what source
you derive your figures given, but 1 find in
a recent publication that there are no less
than six foreign companies carrying in the
city of San Francisco alone, risks to the
amount of from four to nine times the
amount of their assets, and if the local
companies, as you say, do not afford
adequate security, how much less security
is afforded by companies carrying nine dol
lars of risk to one of assets, not only in
San Francisco but probably in every large
city in America and Europe. Since the
introduction by Senator Johnson of his bill
SENATE Bill No. 1881 to regulate the insur-
ance business in California, the most per-
sistent and unwarrantable attacks have
been made upon local insurance companies
from the standpoint of unreliability, mis-
management and extravagant underwrit-
ing. The question naturally arises, why ID
this so Ii our local companies support
such measure it must have merit, and in
raising such hue and cry, not warranted
by the facts, it is evident that the oppo-
nents of the bill have little argument
to offset the logic of its friends. The pro-
posed legislation is in no sense a scheme of
the local companies against the Eastern
and foreign, although the pack of small-fry
weaklings underwriting on this coast
would make it so appear on the contrary,
the large and better class of Eastern and
foreign companies favor the bill, and have
signified their willingness to comply with
so just q measure. Because the companies
of this State look with favor upon such
legislation, and lift their voices against the
fire underwriting excrescences of New Or
leans, st. Louis, Chicago, New York and
the State Of New Jersey, who stalk into
our State to peddle policies of no value in
case of general conhagration, and which
class of insurance corporations are organ
lied expressly for a foreign market, is it
just that such support to Senate Bill No.
lSS should be singled out and villified,
abused and misrepresented Not so.
Whatever applies to the insurance compa-
MES of California in such illogical reason
ing, is the boomerang likely to rebound
and damage the cause using it, for none of
these nonresident companies but have
fifty chances of total humiliation to one of
our own corporations, combining its opera
tions exclusively to the State and Terrific
ries of the Pacific Coast. The city of Lon
don is wholly insured in its local corpora
tions, many of such companies having
twenty times its assets at risk in
that city alone. The press of Lon
don, instead of abusing its own in
situations, applaud and encourage them, so
do New York, Hartford and older Eastern
cities but California, overrun by horde
of agents of nonresident companies, spend
their entire time in decrying and positively
slandering State enterprise, in which i'm.
polite mission we regret to see so able and
influential journal as the RECORD UNION
lending helping hand. If GO companies
can comfortably insure London, in the
name of common sense does it require l07,
good, bad and Indifferent to take care of
San Francisco? Is it not in the interest of
the public to root out the bad and indif-
ferent companies? That, Mr.. RECORD
UNION, is exactly what Senator Johnson's
bill contemplates nothing more and no
less. The bill under discussion does not
seekto, nor will it, drive out the better
class of compans; they will remain, and
are abundantIy able to carry the whole of
San Francisco and, in case of a large fire,
pay dollar for dollar, while if the present
carte blanche system of allowing unreliable
companies from other States and nations,
with small capitals-a diminutive surplus,
concealed deficiencies and inflated values
of investments-to ply their vocation with
out let or hindrance, and, above all, with
out any manner of assets in this State as
security to their policyholders, some of
our citizens would certainly suffer in such
a case. Senate Bill No. lSS is solely
in the interest of the people, and
should receive the hearty support of the
people of this State, in whose interest it
was conceived, and of the legislators who
have sworn to uphold the Constitution.
Local.
Sacramento February IA, 1880.