AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND UNDERWRITERS' ASSOCIATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6053, 12 April 1881, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND UNDERWRITERS' ASSOCIATION.

We have received from the Secretary of the Australian and New Zealand Underwriters' Association a copy of the annual report of the association for the year 1880; also a short account of the commemoration dinner. Amongst the guests r were . the AgentsGeneral of New South Wales and South Australia. The following were amongst the companies represented : —National Fire and -Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand, New Zealand Insurance Company, Standard' Fire and Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand, Union Fire and Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand. The following brief extracts from the Chairman's speech may shed some light upon the objects and attainments of the association : " Those around me recollect the time when a fair margin existed between what the underwriter charged as premium and the amount he was called upon to pay in claims. . That margin has now so diminished that it almost requires a microscope to be able to contemplate it at all; and hence it is that the labours of our association become of more value year, by year, not only to the head offices in the colonies, but to the whole underwriting community at large. With regard to the stowage of explosives, our association continues to receive from all the colonies most pleasing accounts of the manner in which ships .laden, with explosives in London ' deliver 'their cargoes; I would just draw your attention to on* other matter, and that " is, the letters that we send from time to the various captains, urging them not to go into dangerous latitudes after rounding the Capf of Good Hope. Upwards of a thousand of these letters have been sent out from the association to shipmasters and owners in the colonial trade. Many of these have been acknowledged -with gratitude, and who can say the amount of good that has arisen from ; the quiet and unobtrusive method of working. Perhaps the'most important work we have had before ua during the year has been the endeavour to establish a trustee fund in the matter of general average. It has been the custom in cases of . general average for the ship's agent to demand of the consignee of the cargo an amount as deposit, which has always proved far in excess of the just claim ■ that he has upon him. The consignee importing his goods to save a market, desires at once to obtain possession of them, and, therefore, has to pay whatever is demanded of him, which sum was kept in the hands of the ship's agent for many months, sometimes for a much longer period. - A statement was then prepared containing all sorts of objectionable charges and heavy commissions, and the balance handed back to the unhappy depositor, with the intimation that he could either take it or do the other thing. Eventually. we suggested that these deposits should in future be paid into the hands of trustees, and not to the ship's agent as hitherto —one trustee to be appointee? by the association, one by the London companies and Lloyd's, and another by the ship. By paying- the deposits to a trust fund, the ship's agent would have no reason to ask for a larger sum than necessary, or to delay the production of the statement in order to keep this deposit in his hands, nor would he put forward heavy claims for commission or exorbitant expenses, thus jeopardising the statement when completed. On the con- : trary, he would, work with, and not against, -the underwriter,, and:the matter of general average altogether would assume a much more satisfactory aspect. We are doing our ■ utmost to get the colonies to take the matter up in a like spirit, for I am quite sure if once we can.bring about such a state of things in the colonies as we have brought about, here on two separate occasions, we shall never again revert to the old and objectionable method of paying deposits into the hands of ship agents, for them to treat them as' they desm fit." The danger arising from, the . shipment of copra in bulk, • arid under conditions likely to occasion its spontaneous ignition, induced the association to procure the opinion of a skilled chemist as to the best mode of stowing any shipments made of it, and what pre- „ cautions could be adopted for the prevention of fire on the voyage. .That opinion was communicatad to the colonies, where it has been widely diffused, and much good, it is hoped, will result from its extensive publication there. _______ .