693 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



careful management of the association by its officers, our secretary ana 

 directors settling all claims and losses promptly and satisfactorily to the 

 insured and to the association. Our county mutual in the last year paid 

 out in losses $2,036 with a two-mill levy, and has 350 in the treasury, 

 and in the seventeen years we have been running it has cost us an average 

 of 2 1-5 mills on the dollar or just one-half of what it would cost in any 

 stock company in the state of Iowa. 



At no time in the history of the association has our state mutual wind- 

 storm and cyclone association occupied such a commanding position of 

 usefulness and strength as at present. We have broken all previous rec- 

 ords in amount of risks written, losses paid and amount of assessment 

 levied. We have demonstrated our reliability and our ability to pay our 

 losses, both great and small with a promptness not exceeded by any other 

 company on earth. The amount of losses paid this year ($151,700) is more 

 than the paid up capital stock of any Iowa company, yet we hear it 

 argued that capital stock is necessary for the stability of the company. 

 Thirty days after our assessment was made we had every dollar paid 

 and a cash balance in the treasury of $45,000, and this too in one of the 

 most disastrous years Iowa ever experienced. In the face of all these 

 facts, I have no doubt some stock company agents will tell you that this 

 association could not pay a loss of a few thousand dollars. 



The town mutual dwelling house association more than holds good 

 with our farm mutuals for cheap insurance. In the ten years it has been 

 running it has paid less than a one mill levy or $7.5 on one thousand, for 

 five years, which makes it the cheapest and safest insurance of any com- 

 pany in the state. In the ten years they have paid in losses $60,000, and 

 now have $23,000,000 written, putting it in the front rank of any fire com 

 pany in the state. You may howl about trusts and combines and pools ana 

 boards of trade, but the man that insures in a stock company is helping 

 one of the largest combines along there is in the United States today. They 

 take more money from the people according to the money invested than 

 any other combination there is in the state of Iowa. And yet with all these 

 facts before the people we still have lots of them helping the trusts along. 

 Gentlemen, if you will give me the commission you are giving to these 

 stock companies for five years, I will be the richest man in Ringgold 

 county, or if you will come to me and let me write your insurance in the 

 farm or town mutual, you can save that money for yourself and be your 

 own company, and by so doing you help your fellow man as well as your- 

 self which we all owe to one another as neighbors and friends. 



