INSURANCE AC.AINST TIIIC ACCIDllNTS or A( .KICt'LTtTRAI, I,ABOUR 25 



provided that the measures to exact the indemnities cannot be relaxed ex- 

 cept in the cases and according to the ndes established in the regulation, 

 and that every engagement made to escape payment of indemnities or les- 

 sen their amount is mill. 



, The decree-law with which we are concerned regulates another delicate 

 matter, namely the indemnified person's right to revision of an indemnity ; 

 This right is mainly limited by the law in force as to the accidents of 

 industry, but it is better regulated for it takes into account the inconvenien- 

 ces to which this law has given rise. It has been found that workpeople, 

 so soon as an indemnity has been liquidated, frequently ask for its revi- 

 sion, stating that their physical condition has become worse since their 

 claim was first considered Not a few of them repeat this demand several 

 times in the course of the two years fixed by the law, knowing well that the 

 insuring institution, rather than face the expenses of revision, often ends by 

 granting the indemnity asked for. It is therefore provided that a demand 

 for revision, owing to alleged error in the first liqmdation, can be admitted 

 only when this liquidation has taken place, and that it can only be admitted 

 once. In the case of a revision owing to a modification in the physical con- 

 dition of the workman it is established that a demand for this cannot be 

 made until a year after the Uquidation of the indemnity, for a certain pe- 

 riod of time is necessary in order that such a modification may show itself 

 and translate itself into an effective and permanent reduction of working 

 capacity, and in order to exclude or at least to render more difiicult the even- 

 tuality of further deterioration which would require successive revisions. 

 In any case the application for a revision must be made within two years 

 of the day of the accident, according to the ruling of the law in force as 

 to accidents to workmen during employment. 



§ 4. The cost of the insurance. 



One of the most interesting investigations is that into the cost of insu- 

 rance, the exact determination of which has been a matter of no little dif- 

 ficulty. It depends principally, when once the frequency of accidents has 

 been noted, on the number of persons in favour of whom the insurance is 

 instituted and the amount of the indemnity. According to the anticipa- 

 tory calculations made, the insurance will extend to nine million persons be- 

 tween the ages of nine and seventy-five. If those persons be also taken into 

 account who are not indemnified in cases of accidents because their age is 

 not within the stated limits, but who indirectly enjoy the benefits of insu- 

 rance in that they belong to agricultural families, it will be found that the 

 insurance will be to the indirect or direct benefit of a third part of the popu- 

 lation. 



The cost, for so great a number of persons afEected, will be somewhere 

 round 13,000,000 liras, a modest sum in relation not only to the mass of 

 the population benefited but also to the other elements which go to make 



