2 DEPARTMENT BULLETIN 912. 



During 1918, the latest date for which State insurance reports are 

 available, the three groups of hail insurance organizations just 

 mentioned had in force in the United States insurance on growing 

 crops to a total amount of approximately $318,543,000, on which the 

 premiums amounted to $17,631,000. The figures for 1919, as ascer- 

 tained from correspondence with the companies and the State insur- 

 ance commissioners, as well as from various unofficial published re- 

 ports, show a remarkable increase, the total risks and premiums being 

 approximately $559,134,000 and $30,330,000, respectively. 



ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 



The first organization in the United States to write hail insurance 

 on growing crops, so far as official records reveal, was a small mutual 

 concern organized in 1880 by the tobacco growers in Connecticut. 

 This company, for some reason or other, dropped out of existence in 

 1887, but was promptly succeeded by another hail mutual organized 

 in an adjoining county, which is still doing business. No other ex- 

 clusive hail companies are revealed by official records earlier than 

 the year 1889, in which year four mutual hail insurance companies 

 were reported from North Dakota. 



In the meantime one of the larger joint-stock fire insurance com- 

 panies had begun to write hail insurance on growing crops. The first 

 risks were written in Minnesota in 1883, while in the following year 

 a small amount of hail insurance was also written by this company in 

 what was then Dakota Territory, in Nebraska, and in Kansas. The 

 State of Iowa and the Territory of Oklahoma were included in the 

 hail insurance territory of this company in 1897, followed by Wis- 

 consin, Texas, and Colorado in 1898. 



Although many of these early mutuals proved to be short-lived 

 experiments, by 1900 there were 37 mutual hail insurance companies 

 in existence, located in seven different States, as folloAvs : Connecticut 

 1, Wisconsin 4, Minnesota 13, Iowa 7, North Dakota 2, Nebraska 7, 

 and Kansas 3. The total premiums and assessments collected by 

 these companies during the year were approximately $643,000, and the 

 losses incurred amounted to $407,000. More than one-third of the total 

 hail insurance premiums were reported from Iowa, while Minnesota 

 and Nebraska each reported more than one-fifth, Kansas somewhat 

 less than one-sixth of the total, and the other three States smaller 

 amounts. 



In 1905 the total number of hail mutuals was still 37, those that 

 had dropped out since 1900 having been replaced by new organiza- 

 tions. The total premiums of these companies during the year 

 approached $800,000, and the losses were approximately one-half of 

 the premiums collected. By this time at least one additional joint- 



