THE STATE OFFICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14103, 3 July 1909, Page 5

THE STATE OFFICE.

RATES MUST BE RAISED. [BY TELEGRAPH.—FBESS < ASSOCIATION.] Wellington*, Friday. Interviewed by a New Zealand Times reporter the Minister in charge of the State' Fire Insurance Department (the Hon. Geo. Fowlds) said the position in regard to insurance rates is that when the State Department was. started they fixed. rates for risks on dwelling houses at 10 per cent, below those current, believing that to be as low as they would be justified in going, as an experiment until experience * had shown whether the Department could be carried on safely on that basis. This was met by a cut by the companies below the then existing rates of '3$ per cent., and, of course, the State office had no option left but to cut down to the level the companies had fixed. Experience had, of course, proved that those rates are disastrous from an insurance point of view. Last year the State office made a considerable loss on the business done, and all the companies doing business in New Zealand were badly bit. "So it is quite clear," continued the Minister, ■'that the existing rates cannot, be maintained without heavy losses all round, and I don't think it would be justifiable to run the State Fire Insurance Office in such a way as to make it a burden on the general taxpayers of the Dominion. 1 The only way to avoid that will be to get a reasonable increase in the rates to meet the risks we have to run. The function of the State office must 'be to see that rates of insurance are kept within reasonable bounds. ,