ASSURANCE AND INSURANCE. (FOR THE "DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS.")

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3133, 1 August 1867, Page 3

ASSURANCE AND INSURANCE. (FOR THE "DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS.")

By insuranoe we generally comprehend three 'descriptions or classes of risks, divided into life, fire, and marine. A policy granted upon* person's life is termed an assurance policy, since ' the person assuring or insuring his life in any particular office and company receives the assurance > that, upon paying his premiums . quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly for a term or for ! his life, his wife's family or friends will receive a certain amount at his death. These kind of risks are computed by certain tables, commencing generally at 15 years, and are calcu* lated to three-score years and upwards. The advantages of life assurance are many, and to | a young man oommensing business and anxious , to lay by or, devote a few pounds a year, should ;he happen to die leaving a wife and widow behind, must be apparent to any one :] if unmarried, the sum assured may be sufficient to pay, perhaps, all his just debts ; and if not indebted more than he possessed funds to discharge, to leave the accumulation to his next of kin, or for some charitable purpose. The hard-working man who can save his shilling a week out of his wages or salary, whose age may be thirty years, can, by assuring for life and paying up his premium, <leave £100 with accumulations at his death. Again, the fact of a man having his life insured gives him an advantage over hii neighbour! [ who neglect doing so, since, at any time, when, pressed, he may conveniently, provide for his ; temporary necessities bj. obtaining a loan, and depositing his policy as security. A fire policy is simply the indemnity against fire of a person's house and chattels, stock-in-trade, out-buildings, and , farm produce— tho object of the proposer being for a certain fixed annual premium to keep himself insured against losses occasioned by the devouring element. The rates for city, country, and suburbs, usually differ according to the olass and description of buildings and goods therein contained. Great good results from insurances of this nature, and when property is accidentally destroyed by fire, the pressure upon-the insured is scarcely felt, certainly not in the same degree as it would have been had he been uninsured. Marine insurance is carried out by companies, being an arrangement witih parties or owners of vessels, for a certain per-centage, or so much for the direct voyage, to indemnify the owners or proprietors for loss of their vessels, or merchants, shippers, and others, for loss of the goods forwarded by the same vessels. Insurance companies frequently have to contend with a variety of fraudulent cases in connection with assurance and insurance. Life policies are sold, and the assured is kept by crafty persons in a fever from drink and excitement until he has to succumb, and the speculator receives the amount of assurance in due course. In the fire insurance business the field for rascality is greatly widened, since a man can, if inclined, cause directly or indirectly a loss to the company he is Insured with, either upon his house and effects, or stock-in-trade, &c, with very little probability of discovery or detection. True, it happens occasionally that, either from want of caution, or from some blunder in the arrangements, the plot may be found out ; but the question 'of proof is so repeatedly wanting, that the insured escapes leaving the settling to the companies with whom he is insured, with the option of re-erecting, reconstructing, and remodelling. This may be tolerably easy with a certain. class of premiums, but where stock has been sacrificed it is not quiet so easy to ascertain the amount in warehouse or shop, or the required value simply to reinstate the same. Marine companies ' are the victims also of designing people; and yearly the number of vessels laden with goods that traverse the wide seas and are heard of no 'more, is something incredible. Vessels are coated with paint, blemishes are obliterated/oakum and putty used ; and outward sails a ship, classed, possibly, at Lloyd's, and after some months or more is never more heard of. In all cases, whether they are assurances on life, insurances against fire, or against loss at sea, it behoves companies desiring to do business to take great care and caution, lest they be entrapped by designing individuals, and, from a difficulty of obtaining and procuring the information requisite, made to suffer losses, which sometimes cause the hasty decision of at home, and the desire on their part to withdraw the agencies they have been endeavouring to establish, for the purpose of cmltivating business in " pastures new."