COMPENSATION RISKS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 1, 1 July 1926, Page 8

COMPENSATION RISKS

THE NEW SOUTH WALES ACT

NEW ZEALAND COMPANIES TAKING BUSINESS.

(By Teleoraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post")

AUCKLAND, -Ist-July.

Inquiries* in local insurance circles yesterday disclosed the fact that the South British Insurance Company y«i prepared to writeirisks under the. N^w South Wales Act from to-day, when the Act comes into operation, while tho New Zealand Insurance Company -was awaiting more particulars before it defined its policy: ...

Mr. P. H. Upton (general, manager of the South British Company) said that a number of companies, his own among them, had applied for licenses to do business under the Act, and that rates had beeh.fixed commensurate with the risks to bo undertaken, so far as it hadbeeu possible to calculate them. His company was .prepared to :do business as from to-day. -Ho understood .that a number of companies had taken the view that-the Act was so wide that without more information.! as to what they were underwriting they could not undertake the risks. To this the New South Wales Government. had replied that it would set up a separate department to write risks if necessary. Mr. Upton did not, however, anticipate any trouble. He explained that the, Act had extended the -benefits for accidents very greatly, and had also : included sickness as grounds for compensation. Owing to the -wide scope of these amendments, the rates fixed must meanwhile be merely experimental, until the company gained experience of the working of the Act. : "But we take the view," said; Mr. Upton, '"that it is our business to-write tho risk/first having estimated it as closely: as possible." Under the company'sY' new scale the rates f6r; accident risk";would be approximately Jl5O per cent, higher .than under the old sealei. The sickness benefit was art- entirely new departure, and the,premium had been fixed at 30s per cent. Admittedly that was- a "high rate, although there had been-a feeling that-it should..be:fixed' at 40s pier cent. "In any-case, both? the hew.rates: were experimental, and must await the verdict of-experience before they were adopted or>amended. :■ Private advice was received in Auckland to-day that two New Zealand companies had. applied for licenses under the New South Wales Act.. \ These were - the South British and Standard Companies. Seven New South Wales companies had applied for. licenses.'.' An application had also been received from the West! 'Australian' Company, and as far as was known, only one, English office, the Employers* Liability . Company, had taken similar action. ;