The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-10-17
FARMERS NEED OF
PROPERTY INSURANCE
Suggestions for Meeting This Need by
Department CT Agriculture Va
riety 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 a single stroke,
deprive their victims of the accumulated
earnings of many years. Perhaps Sec
ond reason why farmers usually first
provide themselves with fire and wind
storm insurance is the fact that these
are, as a rule, relatively less expensive
than the other two kinds of insurance
here considered. BY this is meant that
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
sible, 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
mot signify that these forms of protec-
ton 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 90 without insurance. Happily
few are so poor that they are compelled
to go without a safeguard that to the
average farmer may be elassed as a
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 90 with
out it. Hence the Importance of max
to make it and vet have it efficient and
dependable.
About two-ffths 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 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 frein
surance mutuals. Local windstormin-
surance companies have, however, in
several instances, been taught by expo
rience, and to their own sorrow, that
while each group of farm buildings and
| to a considerable extent each building
within the group constitutes a 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 a number of these
associations have successful record
covering many years, companies repre-
senting these kinds of insurance have
been less generally successful than have
farmers mutual fire-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 somc 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 undertak-
en- careful study of various kinds of
property insurance of interest to the
farmer. The information in 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 insurance best
adapted to their needs.