16 BULLETIN 1043, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
INSURANCE BY CONTRACT. 
Tables 1, 2, and 3 give some idea at least of the extent of the 
hazards and the losses to which the producer of crops is exposed. 
Many of these hazards may be reduced or even eliminated by the 
principles of self-insurance already mentioned. Even after this is 
done, however, there remains a large element of risk in the pro- 
duction of crops which can be adequately cared for only by a 
reliable contract for indemnity, or, in other words, by insurance 
in the technical meaning of the term. 
The only insurance hitherto generally available for the risks or 
hazards in crop production has been that of hail insurance, and even 
this form of coverage is of relatively recent origin. Hail insur- 
ance on growing crops has grown during the last decade into a 
business of some magnitude. The total premiums for 1919, which 
marks the highest point yet reached, exceeded $30,000,000. More 
than half of these premiums were collected by joint-stock fire in- 
surance companies, about 60 in number, which write hail insurance 
more or less as a side line. The remainder was divided almost 
equally between specialized hail insurance companies doing busi- 
ness on the mutual plan and State hail insurance funds or depart- 
ments. The total risks covered amounted to about $560,000,000. 
Almost one-half of these risks was carried by the joint-stock com- 
panies and the other half was divided equally between the mutuals 
and the State departments in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, 
and Nebraska. 1 
A certain amount of fire insurance has also been written on stand- 
ing grain in some States of the West. This form of insurance is 
most common in districts where large acreages of wheat are left 
standing until thoroughly ripe and dry and then cut and thrashed 
in a single process. The insurance takes effect on the grain in the 
field and as a rule follows it until it is sold or stored in a commercial 
elevator or warehouse. 
In recent years attempts have been made to work out a more gen- 
eral plan of insurance coverage for farm crops. The first attempts of 
this kind were made in 1917, when three joint-stock fire insurance 
companies offered crop insurance in North Dakota, South Dakota, 
and Montana. Two of these companies wrote practically identical 
contracts and the contract of the third differed but little from the 
others. A brief outline of the leading features of the plan follows. 
The insurance covered all the hazards to which crops are subject, 
with the exception of fire, floods, winterkill, and failure on the part 
of the farmer properly to till and care for his crops. The hail 
hazard was specifically included in the coverage offered by this form 
1 U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 912, " Hall Insurance on Growing Crops in the United States," 
p. 11. 
