IS THERE A REMEDY FOR THE FIRE WASTE?

IS THERE A REMEDY FOR THE FIRE WASTE?

根据目前的估计火insurance statisticians, the fire losses for the present year will be from fifteen to twenty-five per cent greater than they have averaged for the past ten years—greater, in fact, than in any year except those which included the Chicago and Boston conflagrations. The actual loss of property this year bids fair to reach $120,000,000 or more—a sum so enormous as to demand that some remedy be sought at the hands of our national legislature. We have discussed this subject in all its phases, and have given publicity to the suggestions of many thinking, practical men, but have come to the conclusion that the only feasible way to reduce the fire loss is to enact such legislation as will prohibit insurance companies paying more than three-fourths of a proved loss where the fire originates on the premises destroyed. In France, where the damage by fire is trifling compared with what it is in this country, owners and occupants of buildings are held responsible for a fire originating on their premises, and persons suffering damage in consequence of such fire may sue such owner or occupant for damages, and even cause his imprisonment. Such laws, making the propertyowner directly and pecuniarily interested in the care of his property, tend to destroy all incentive to incendiarism and to induce care and thoughtfulness. Then, too, in France they have better building laws, and they are more rigidly enforced than here, so that fires resulting from faulty construction are few in number. Here the propertyowner has no incentive to put up solid, substantial buildings, or to provide means of prevention or protection, for the simple reason that the insurance companies will insure a highly combustible building for all it is worth or more, for the same price that they will a building upon which large sums of money have been expended to make it fireproof, or as nearly so as may be. So long as the insurance companies will insure against any and every hazard, indemnifying owners to the full extent, or beyond, of their losses, there is no inducement to erect fireproof buildings or to exercise any special care in the protection of the inflammable ones. On the contrary, the fact that they will so indemnify propertyowners is a direct temptation to incendiarism. Thousands of instances might be given where propertyowners have set fire to their premises with the sole object of collecting the amounts for which they are insured. This occurs most frequently among small merchants or tradesmen who occupy rented premises, who are over-insured on their own stock, and care nothing for the losses that other tenants of the building may suffer. Often such incendiary fires have been started in buildings occupied by many families, by unscrupulous persons who took the chance of adding murder to the crime of arson. If the law prohibited insurance companies paying more than three-fourths of a loss where the fire originated on the premises, there would speedily be an end to incendiarism perpetrated for the purpose of collecting insurance. It would also compel all classes of propertyowners and tenants of buildings to adopt every possible precaution to prevent fires and to have at hand the most improved appliances for putting out any accidental fire that might occur. We believe that the passage of such a law by our legislature would reduce the fire loss in this State at least one-half, and similar results would follow such legislation in every State.

We have stated repeatedly that, because of the heavy and increasing losses, the fire insurance companies were not doing a profitable business. Several were driven out of the field last month, and it is anticipated that several more will withdraw by the close of the year, when they are required to submit their annual reports. The Spectator, an insurance journal, has recently been interviewing a number of prominent underwriters upon the situation, and in the course of their remarks they give the reasons for the heavy losses, suggest the remedy for them, and pay high and deserved compliments to the fire departments. We make a few extracts, as follows :