Part II: Insurance and Thrift 



UNITED STATES 



THK GENERAI, CONDITIONvS 



OF INSURANCE AGAINST FIRE AND THE DE\'EI,OPMENT 



OF MUTUAL INSURANCE. 



OPFICIAI, SOURCES: 



Valgren (V. N.), Investigator in Agricultural Insurance Office of Markets and Rural Orga- 

 nization : — Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance. Washington, Government Printing 

 Office, 191 7. 



Potts (Rxifus M.) : Forty-Seventh Annual Insurance Report of the Insurance Superintendent 

 of the State of Illinois. Farm Mutual Insurance Companies. 



OTHER SOURCES : 



Wentworth (Franklin H.), Secretary-Treasurer National Fire Protection Association: Ameri- 

 can Fire Waste and its Prevention, in The Annals of th e American Academy of Political and 

 Social Science, Vol. I<XX, No. 159, March 1917, Concord, New Hampshire. 



RiEGEL (Robert), Instructor in Insurance, \^^arton School of Finance and Commerce, Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania : Rate-making Organizations in Fire Insurance. Ibid : 



RiEGEL (Robert) : Problems of Fire Insurance Rate-maldng. Ibid : 



Blanchard (Ralph H.), Instructor in Insurance, ^V^larton School of Finance and Commerce, 

 University of Pennsylvania : Insurance of the Catastrophe Hazard. Ibid : 



§ I. Some aspects of insurance 



AGAINST FIRE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



vStatistics show that in the United States and Canada the fire waste 

 is roughly ten times as much per person as in Europe. This contrast is partly 

 explained by the facts that there are more people in Europe upon whom 

 to calculate this percentage and that m.ore buildings in America are made of 

 wood. The annual American fire waste averages S3 a dollar a head of the 

 population, and the United States government in its reports adds to this 

 the cost of maintaining fire departments which is as much more. The total 

 loss by fire in the United States and Canada for the last ten years has ave- 

 raged §230,000,000 a year. 



