RECORDS FOR FARMERS’ FIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES. 3 
extent the essentials of simplicity and convenience with a maximum 
of readily available information. 
Plan IT necessitates a considerable amount of posting or transcrib- 
ing of items from the policy register to a book of summary accounts 
ora general ledger. It therefore presupposes a more thorough knowl- 
edge of bookkeeping principles, and requires a certain amount of 
additional clerical work. A book of ordinary size soon becomes filled 
if a page, or even half a page, is allotted to each member. Hence the 
records become bulky and require a relatively large safe for their 
accommodation. 
In spite of the many advantages claimed for the card system of 
records, here referred to as Plan III, only a few farmers’ mutual 
insurance companies have adopted it and some of these have ex- 
pressed their intention to return to the book form of records. The 
secretary of a farmers’ mutual, in a very large percentage of cases, 
is neither a trained bookkeeper nor an accountant, but rather a 
practical farmer by experience who has been induced to devote a 
part or all of his time to the local insurance company. Under these 
circumstances it seems that the tendency for a card record to become 
lost or misplaced more than offsets the convenience with which such 
records can be systematically arranged, dead records removed, addi- 
tional records inserted, etc. The essential disadvantages of Plan IT 
in the way of necessary posting or summarizing can also be charged 
against Plan III. For these reasons Plan I, which is at present the 
prevailing plan, has been used as a basis for the system here sug- 
gested, each book of which will be found briefly described as well as 
illustrated in the following pages. The books comprise a policy 
register, a book for increases and cancellations, a cash receipts book, 
a cash disbursements book, and an index book, or its equivalent in a 
-set of index cards. To these books, each of which is practically in- 
dispensable to the keeping of complete records and the avoidance of 
needless labor and confusion, there have been added two books in- 
tended to make possible the keeping of a historical summary of the 
company’s business in condensed form. One of these provides for a 
periodic summary of policies and risks and the other for a similar 
summary of receipts, disbursements, and balances or cash on hand. 
A general ledger and various other books will of course be needed 
by the larger mutuals, which, as a rule, employ trained bookkeepers, 
but it is thought best not to complicate this discussion with considera- 
tions involving technical bookkeeping or accounting. 
POLICY REGISTER. 
The policy register suggested allows for each policy two horizontal _ 
lines or spaces running across the two facing pages of the open book. 
In the forms intended for actual use the two spaces intended for the 
record of a single policy should be separated by a faint line, while 
