208 



INSURANCE 



insurance. The assessor was allowed 25 cents per quarter section 

 and 10 cents for each additional quarter to one owner for all such 

 insurance written by him. But this compensation proved too 

 small, and hence he made little effort to sell insurance. In 1913 

 the law was revised. The assessor was allowed a fee of one-half 

 cent per acre a very substantial increase. The charge for insur- 

 ance was raised to 30 cents an acre. The maximum protection 

 allowed was $8.00 an acre. The assessor was required to collect 

 his fee and the entire cost of the insurance in cash from the farmer 

 at the time the application for insurance was written. This proved 

 a very serious handicap, since the farmer's habit is to pay his bills 

 in the fall, after the grain harvest. Consequently the number of 

 farmers taking out State hail insurance was small. In actual 

 operation this law worked as follows : 



North Dakota State Hail Insurance 1911-1916. Maximum Protection, $8 



an Acre 



The operation of this law proved both inconvenient and costly 

 to the farmers. Hence the demand arose that state hail insurance 

 be made compulsory and a tax be levied on all agricultural land 

 to defray the cost. This demand involved an amendment to the 

 State Constitution. Such an amendment, following the devious 

 course provided by law, passed the 1915 legislature, the 1917 

 legislature, and went before the people, for their ratification, in 

 the regular election of 1918 and was then ratified. 



Mutual Hail Insurance. Cooperative hail insurance, or mutual 

 hail insurance as it is generally termed, is successfully conducted 

 in many parts of the country. The peculiar problems of this form 

 of insurance may best be seen by taking a concrete example. 

 For our study let us take the Alliance Hail Association of North 

 Dakota, which completed the twenty-eighth year of service in 

 1918. It is an example of a successful insurance company all of 

 whose officers and directors are practical farmers. It is incorpor- 

 ated under North Dakota laws and is subject to the strict super- 



