HAIL INSURANCE OjST FARM CROPS. 25 



growing and giving promise of a fair harvest. This means that, in 

 order to secure business in any considerable volume, competent 

 solicitors must be employed during the relatively busy summer 

 months, while the company has no employment for them after the 

 hail-writing season ends except to the extent that the same men are 

 also used as adjusters. The adjustment work,, however, begins 

 shortly after the hail-writing season opens and continues but a few 

 weeks at the most after the acquisition of business has ceased. What 

 is true of the field work in hail insurance is true to a considerable 

 extent also of the office work, most of which is coincident with the 

 writing of insurance and the adjustment -of losses. 



This seasonal nature of the business adds materially to the prob- 

 lems of administration as well as to the expenses of operation, it 

 being obviously difficult, if not impossible, to attract efficient workers 

 under these conditions without the offer of special inducements. In 

 the case of most mutuals writing term policies the cancellations at 

 the end of the first season are relatively large. Even in such com- 

 panies, therefore, the risks in force during a given season rest to a 

 considerable degree on policies written after the fields were giving 

 substantial promise of harvest. 



There is, of course, a considerable economy in the expense item of 

 an insurance company resulting from term policies, providing the 

 policies actually remain in force for the term contemplated. As a 

 rule, this advantage, for reasons already indicated, has been only 

 partially realized. Certain notable exceptions are to be found, how- 

 ever, a few mutuals having succeeded in making their membership 

 practically as continuous as is the general rule in the case of f armers ? 

 mutual fire insurance companies. - In such cases, as might be ex- 

 pected, the expense item of the compan} 7 has been strikingly small 

 and the total saving to the members has been correspondingly great. 



A particularly difficult problem in the administration of a hail 

 insurance companj T as compared with that of a company insuring 

 isolated buildings and other farm property against fire, is to be 

 found in the peculiarly erratic nature of the hail hazard, and the 

 resulting wide variation in the losses experienced. In 1914, for ex- 

 ample, the total hail premiums collected by all classes of insurance 

 institutions in the United States approximated $5,558,000 and the 

 losses were only $2,677,000, or 48 per cent of the premiums. The fol- 

 lowing year, 1915, the total hail premiums received amounted to 

 about $9,752,000, while the losses incurred were $11,833,000, or over 

 121 per cent of the premiums collected. The summer of 1916 was 

 again a season of severe losses for the hail insurance companies, as 

 well as for the farmers who carried their own risks. The years 1917 

 and 1919 were both years of relatively small hail losses for the coun- 

 try as a whole, while 1918 was what' may be termed moderate or 

 approximately an average year. During the six years above men- 

 tioned the percentages of total hail premiums paid out for losses by 



