Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1916-10-20
FARMER NEEDS INSURANCE.
Suggestions for Meeting This Need by
Department of Agriculture-variety
of Risks Considered


-Four kinds of property insurance are
written in which the farmer is particu
larly interested. These are, insurance
of buildings against loss by fire or
lightning, insurance of the same objects
against loss by windstorm, insurance of
growing crops against hail, and insur-
ance of livestock against death by dis
ease or accident.
To the average farmer the first two
kinds of insurance usually make the
strongest appeal. One reason for this
is doubtless the feeling that fire and
windstorm are the destructive agencies
that most frequently, at single stroke,
deprive their victims of the accumulated
earnings of many years. Perhaps a sec
ond reason why farmers usually first
provide themselves with fire and wind
storm insurance is the fact that these
are, as rule, relatively less expensive
than the other two kinds of insurance
here considered. BY this is meant that
a larger percentage of the money col
lected from the insured can be used to
compensate the sufferers of loss than is
the case with hail or livestock insur-
ance. A simpler organization is pos
sibe, and fraudulent claims are more
easily guarded against.
The fact that hail and livestock in
surance are less generally carried by
the farmers of the United States does
not signify that these forms of protec-
tion are not important. Under certain
circumstances and conditions they may
even outrank in importance the other
two. AS the American farmer learns to
make of agriculture more strictly
science, and to eliminate, as far as pos
sible, the element of chance, he will
doubtless insist on the further develop
ment of all the kinds of insurance here
enumerated, and perhaps of still others.
Few farmers are so rich that they can
wisely go without insurance. Happily
few are so poor that they are compelled
to go without safeguard that to the
average farmer may be classed as
necessity. The very farmer who has
but few buildings and little personal
property, and is perhaps less able to
pay for insurance protection, is really
the one who can least afford to go with
out it. Hence the importance of max
ing insurance as cheap as it is possible
to make it and yet have it efficient and
dependable.
About -fifths of the farmers in the
United States have found a method of
providing themselves with fire insurance
at greatly reduced cost through mutual
or cooperative insurance associations,
embracing a single county or some such
limited territory. Dependable and
cheap windstorm insurance has similar
ly been provided by means of larger
mutual companies, often operating in
close relationship with the local fire-in-
surance mutuals. Local windstorm-in-
surance companies have, however, in
several instances, been taught by expe-
rience, and to their own sorrow, that
while each group of farm buildings and
to a considerable extent each building
within the group constitutes separate
and distinct risk so far as the fire haz-
ard is concerned, the same is not true
with reference to the windstorm haz-
ard. Safety and stability in windstorm
insurance demand that the amount of
insurance be large and the risks widely
scattered. The same is true of hail in
surance.
A smaller number of farmers have
also provided themselves with hail and
livestock insurance by means of mutual
associations. While number of these
associations have a successful record
covering many years, companies repre-
senting these kinds of insurance have
been less generally successful than have
farmers mutual fre-insurance and
windstorm-insurance companies. Some
of the reasons for this difference in sue
cess have already been suggested.
Not infrequently letters come to the
department of agriculture relating sto-
ries of hardships due to losses of prop
erty not covered by insurance, and ask
ing if some provision does not exist by
which the department can aid deserving
farmers who have met with special dis
aster to their property. The answer to
such inquiries must, of course, be in the
negative.
The office of markets and rural organ
ization of the department has undertake
en- a careful study of various kinds of
property insurance of interest to the
farmer The information i'll its posses
sion is at the disposal OF groups of
farmers who desire to organize with the
view of providing themselves under ia
vorable conditions with ms trance best