Compulsory insurance of their risks, by employers.
Belgium, for miners, 1868.
Germany, 1884, (in employers' associations), 1887, 1900,
1911 (voluntary for some classes).
Austria, 1887 (as in Germany), 1894 (voluntary for some
classes).
Norway, 1894 (in a state central insurance office), 1896.
Italy, 1898, 1904.
Holland, 1901 (in the Royal Bank or in private companies).
Sweden, 1901 (as in Norway).
§ 7. #The compensation plan in America#. Under the practical operation of the law of employers' liability in force in any American state until 1911, a very small proportion of the workers injured while at work were legally entitled to any indemnity, and a still smaller proportion could succeed in recovering any substantial amount. Employers, and the accident companies with which employers insured, either compromised the claims for small amounts or fought bitterly in the courts the claims of those who refused to compromise. When the courts awarded damages, large or small, a large part of the proceeds went for legal expenses. But a small proportion of the total costs to employers came as benefits to the victims of accidents. It appeared in an extensive investigation of the business of the large industrial insurance companies that but 28 per cent of the premiums paid by employers were paid to workmen as indemnity.
Between 1911 and 1916 the laws have been changed to some extent in their application to selected occupations in at least 34 states and territories of the United States, and covering nearly all but some of the distinctly agricultural states. This remarkable development has been largely actuated and guided by a comparatively small group of socially minded nonworking class citizens rather than by either employees or organized workers. It is an encouraging example of what can be done by skilful methods, when conditions are ripe, in furthering righteous social legislation without the use of money or of corrupting influences.