The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-03-02
Chapter IL.

In the last chapter | spoke of some
insurance matters, and said | had
heard that there are people at the
capitol building, who want the state
to have a monopoly on insurance and
are working to secure it. | was sur
| prised to find the man at the head of
| the department saying he was in
favor of making it state monopoly,
and | went across the hall and talked
| to George H. Fisher, who has been a
member of the inSuranc commission
ever since it was organized three
years ago, and he gave me some more
| forts were made to make it a
monopoly right at the time the law
| went into effect, and he had an eight
day row with other members of the
administration to keep it from being
made so. He explained that the
law provided that every employer
must carry accident insurance in the
state bureau, OK in some approved
company doing business in the state,
and the rest of the insurance depart
ment tried to ignore the provision re-
garding companies doing business in
the state, and compel everybody to
take their insurance in the new state
political bureau. After daily row
that lasted eight days he got them to
understand that the good, old, safe
and sane companies that had licenses
to conduct accident insurance in
Idaho could still go on doing business
and that the employers who wanted
to could patronize them. Then they
tried to get him out of the way and
get somebody in who would rule with
them, and the plan failed. Then they
tried to revoke the licenses of all the
private companies carrying accident
insurance in the state, and get rid of
them in that way, and that plan
failed. Then they established state
board to receive and act upon all
claims and say who shall be paid
damages resulting from accidents,
and who shall not, and people are
saying that the department that
passes upon these things favors the
state insurance department to the
disadvantage of the private COM
panies. | don't know whether this
last charge is correct or not. merely
know that there is man and an Of
flee passing upon all those things,
and what he says goes. | don't know
whether he is just and righteous
man in his judgment or not, but if
people having business with that de-
partment will bring me what infor-
nation they can we shall probably
find out.
Many Complaints Made
A good many complaints have been
made about persons receiving in
jliries at their work, and being unfit
for duty for few days and receiving
nothing for it. The law provides
that no payment shall be made to
cover losses of time due to accidents,
unless the loss of time shall be more
than one week. This provision was
made necessary by the fact that so
many workmen of the "tioater' class
took advantage of it. They would
want to lay off for few days to have
a rest or a spree, and would manage
to get some little injury to foot or
d HuSCl VI ooIuCIhlu5 VI IllC hihu,
and report it and then lay off and
take pay for the time. Some would
do this at the time of a celebration
or a ball game or fair or carnival.
The provision mentioned, shuts out
that class of claims, and the insur-
ance is based upon bona fide injuries.
Pendlebury's Experience
The Blackfoot Potato Growers
association at Blackfoot, the firm
that has the finest storage facilities
and finest sorting machinery in the
state, had an interesting experience
with their accident insurance. In
the year 1918 they insured with the
Maryland Casualty company thru c.
S. Beebe at Blackfoot, and one day
an employee caught his finger in the
gear of the sorter and clipped the.
end of the finger off. The gear was
not protected by shield as it should
have been. The accident was re-
ported to c. S. Beebe, who looked |
over the record of the case and found
that insurance had only been asked |
for a manager and bookkeeper,
those probably being the only per-
sons employed when the insurance
was written, and no request nor re-
port was made about laborers or ma