INSURANCE IN NEW ZEALAND

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3492, 30 October 1926, Page 9

INSURANCE IN NEW ZEALAND

NECESSITY FOR FREEDOM OF ACTION.

GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY DEPRECATED.

[Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, Oct. 29.

In moving the adoption of the annual report at the meeting of the South British Insurance Company, the chairman (Mr. W. R. Wilson) expressed the opinion that New Zealand would be very foolish to seriously consider the State monopoly of insurance as had been mooted in one or more of the Australian States. There was the greatest objection to the community being deprived of its freedom to choose where it would insure. The competition for insurance was getting keener and more and more intense. Reduced insurances, caused by falling values and disturbed trading conditions, induced underwriters to extend their fields of operations. The result was that rates were quoted not on the merits of the risks, but for the purpose of getting business. There was food for serious thought in the fact that in the accounts now presented the premiums represented risks covered in the aggregate to the extent of several hundred million pounds and that the net losses borne by the company exceeded half a million pounds. The assessment of risks demanded knowledge and experience so that rates would bo quoted adequate to meet the losses and to build up a reserve. That the year’s profit from operations of this magnitude was only £52,000 showed how closoiy the rates were calculated.