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 follows : 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- 
