Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1893 — Twenty-two Billions Insurance. [ARTICLE]

Twenty-two Billions Insurance.

The enormous increase in the fire insurance business of this country iu recent years is shown, remarks the New York Times, by some figures just collected by a well-known adjuster, who fixes the total amounts insured at the close of 1892 at 122,001,000.003, which represents about 82.5 per cent, of the total property valuations in the United States. In 18G2 the percentage of amounts insured in the total property valuation was only nine. In 1870 it had increased to 10.78; in 1880, to 20.90, and in 1890 to 80.41. The total amounts insured to-day are nearly thirteen times greater than they were in 1860, while the property valuations are only four, or at the most four and a half times greater. C. C. lline, of New York City, an excellent authority on lire insurance matters, said recently that the amount of this increase is not so very astonishing, because every industry enlarges here phenomenally, but that tbe percentage of increase ou the values to be insured raises the inquiry whether the fire insurance mine has not now been exhausted. Whether or not these reductions as to the fertility of the tire insurance field are correct, it is certain that there never was more grumbling among the underwriters than there is to-day. The year that has just closed has been remarkably severe for fire losses, and in Brooklyn and Milwaukee the field men are in a state bordering on consternation. This condition of affairs is the result of numerous causes, extending through a term of years. Increasing rates and decreasing commissions, together with a complicated agency system involving agents, brokers, and middlemen of high and low degree, have each contributed to the general demoralization of which the underwriters complain.