NORTH DAKOTA STATE HAIL INSURANCE 207 



The second year three municipalities withdrew and fourteen 

 new ones came in, making 126 municipalities under the Act. 

 This year the losses and expenses amounted to $543,665.62, and 

 the net revenues to $896,365.26. After setting aside a tax adjust- 

 ment reserve fund, the surplus to reserve became $348,391.55. 



The year 1915 found 127 municipalities under the Act, with 

 22,000,000 acres of land, of which 5,000,000 was in crops. 



The year 1916 proved to be the inevitable "bad year" that 

 comes to all hail insurance companies. The strain was too severe 

 for the system to stand. The hail losses were ten per cent of the 

 crop, amounting to a loss of $3,600,000. The revenue was only 

 $1,500,000, or a little over two million dollars short of paying 

 the losses. 



The Saskatchewan legislature, accordingly, in 1917 made a 

 thorough revision of the Municipal Hail Insurance Act. As 

 revised, the Act provides for a system of management similar 

 to that of the Cooperative Elevator Company of that province. 

 Each municipality votes on the question of coming under the 

 scheme. Each municipality so voting appoints a delegate to 

 represent it at the annual general meeting of the organization. 

 At this general meeting the directors are chosen, the scheme 

 providing for nine in all, three to retire each year. This puts the 

 management completely into the hands of the municipalities. 

 The general meeting, in reality a legislative body on this one 

 economic matter, has power to make provision for a crop acre- 

 age assessment in addition to a flat rate if it so desires, but 

 such action on the part of the general meeting cannot become 

 operative in the current year, thus giving opportunity to any 

 dissatisfied municipality to withdraw from the scheme at the 

 intervening election. 



Thus the principle of state hail insurance has not been 

 abandoned, or even discredited in the eyes of the Saskatchewan 

 farmers. Apparently they have committed themselves for good 

 to this principle. 



North Dakota State Hail Insurance. The State of North 

 Dakota may serve as a type of state experimentation with hail 

 insurance. In 1911 a law was passed providing for a State admin- 

 istered system of hail insurance, under the jurisdiction of the State 

 Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor. The insurance fund was 

 derived from a charge of 20 cents an acre on the insured crops. 

 Farmers were offered the opportunity in April or May, when the 

 local tax assessor came around to value their property, to buy hail 



