HAIL INSURANCE ON FARM CROPS. 21 
insured twice as long as another without affecting the premium 
charges for such insurance. 
All the joint-stock fire insurance companies, so far as known, limit 
themselves to a policy covering a specific crop growing on a desig- 
nated piece of ground. The same is generally true of the mutuals 
operating west and south of Minnesota and Iowa. In the States 
just named, as well as in the States farther to the east, a number 
of the mutuals write a term policy for either three or five years and 
cover certain enumerated crops on a given farm. One very successful 
mutual, in fact, writes a perpetual policy which means, of course, 
that the insurance contract continues in force until canceled either 
by the insured or by the company. 
While the disregard of the time element in the typical hail policy 
at first sight appears highly inconsistent, it is again, in part at least, 
explained by the peculiar nature of the objects insured. Even though 
hailstorms may be no more frequent or severe in the latter part of the 
season during which the hail policy is in force, the risk in the sense 
of probability of loss may be said in the case of most crops, at least, 
to increase rapidly as the time of harvest approaches. During the 
early stages of the growing crop the ravages of hail storms may cause 
a set-back merely, without materially affecting the final outcome or 
yield. As the crop develops, however, the possibility of such re- 
covery becomes more and more remote and eventually disappears. 
Furthermore, a hailstorm occurring at the time when the crop is 
ready for harvest means not only that the damage wrought is irrep- 
arable, but a larger percentage of the stems of grain are actually 
broken, than would have been the case at an earlier stage. The heads 
on broken stems drop to the ground, while the heads on unbroken 
stems majr have lost a part of their contents. 
The difference between the hail policy and the fire policy, already 
pointed out, is based mainly on differences inherent in the objects 
covered by the insurance. Additional differences arise from marked 
dissimilarities in the hazards involved. The fire hazard originates 
in two kinds of underlying causes, namely, natural forces or agencies 
and bad or careless human actions. Of these two sources of the fire 
hazard the latter is beyond doubt the more important. In the case 
of hail insurance, on the other other hand, the hazard insured against 
originates entirely in natural forces over which man has no control. 
Most of the elaborate provisions against the so-called moral hazard, 
which are embodied in the fire insurance policy, therefore, have no 
place in the hail insurance contract. 
While an individual whose crop is insured can not by his own action 
or lack of action bring about the occurrence of hail, he may, however, 
under certain circumstances increase the apparent loss due to hail 
by failure properly to care for a damaged crop after hail has oc- 
curred. There is also the possibility that the description of the acre- 
age covered be made so inaccurate or misleading as to apply equally 
