[237d-7] According to an English average of 15 years, there is some damage from fire yearly in the following classes of buildings and on the following percentages:
| Of the whole number. | |
| Match factories, | 30.00 |
| Lodging houses, | 16.50 |
| Hat makers, | 07.70 |
| Cloth makers, | 02.60 |
| Candle makers, | 03.80 |
| Smiths, | 02.40 |
| Carpenters, | 02.20 |
| Oil and color dealers, | 01.50 |
| Book dealers, | 01.10 |
| Coffee houses, | 01.20 |
| Beer houses, | 01.30 |
| Bakeries, | 00.75 |
| Wine dealers, | 00.61 |
| Small dealers in spices, | 00.34 |
| Eating houses, | 00.86 |
(Quart. Rev., 1854, 23.) There is indeed a difference in the intensity of these fires. For instance, in inns, there have been a great many; but the damage has been for the most part insignificant.
[237d-8] In Paris the houses insured had a value of 2,370,000,000 francs, but the damage from fire amounted to only 0.016 per 1,000! (Dictionn. d'Econ. politique, I, 89.) On an average, the premiums in France amount to 0.85 per 1,000. In Prussia, 1867-69 on an average: in the province of Prussia, 9.46 per 1,000; Posen, 3.75; Brandenburg, Berlin not included, 2.82; Pomerania, 2.52; Westphalia, 2.15; Schleswig-Holstein, 2.09; Hanover, 1.99; Silesia, 1.68; Saxony, 1.47; Hesse-Nassau, 1.46; the Rhine country, 1.34; Sigmaringen, 0.56; city of Berlin, 0.28 per 1,000. (Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., 1871, 289.) How largely a higher civilization tends to arrest the spread of fire by the reason of the great facilities of rendering assistance is shown by the fact that for 100 buildings totally consumed in Posen, in 1837-40, there were 13.4 only injured: in 1866-69, 32 were injured for 100 totally consumed. In Prussian Saxony, 1839-44, 34; 1867-69, 57. (loc. cit., 329.) In Baden, the district called the Seekreis got from the fire-fund, in 1845-49, 80 per cent. more than it contributed to it; the middle Rhine district contributed 37 per cent. more than it received. The Bavarian Reza district, 1828-29, received only 11.4 per cent. for damages, and paid 19 per cent. of all premiums; the Lower Danube district, 10 and 8.8 per cent. (Rau, Lehrbuch, II, § 28, 26.) The city of Leipzig contributed from 1/19 to 1/17 of the insurance paid, 1864-68, to the insurance companies taking risks on real property in the kingdom of Saxony, and received back only from 1/662 to 1/114, although its fire extinguishing institutions cost, in 1870, 26,182 thalers. (Official.)
[237d-9] Even premium-institutions have frequently very different rates for the same risk, according as they fear greater or less competition, or desire to recommend themselves in a new place, etc. Hence the tricks of the trade with which most of them surround their tariff.
[237d-10] In Würtemberg, theaters, powder mills, places where brick and lime are burned, porcelain factories, iron-works, etc. cannot be insured at all. In Calenb-Grubenh. and Bremen-Verden, shingle-roofed houses can be insured only at 2/3 of their real value.
[237d-11] Thus, for instance, in the electorate of Mark, each of the four classes of houses bears its own loss alone. To the fourth class, for instance, belong smithies, brick factories, and buildings with steam engines, etc. The Baden law of 1852 puts the same burthen in the same place, upon houses exposed to danger in a greater or lesser degree; but provides for 4 classes (Gemeindeclassen) with different rates of contribution, and assigns each Gemeinde every year, according to the relative magnitude of the losses of the previous year, to one of those classes. How risky it is for large cities to confine their insurance, because of the ordinarily small amount of damage to them from fire, only to insurance institutions of their own, is shown by the case of Hamburg in the year 1842, where three joint stock insurance companies could pay only from 75 to 80 per cent., and the Bieber Mutual Insurance Company, only 20 per cent.
[237d-12] In the case of buildings, the greater risk is generally calculated by correspondingly multiplying the insurance-value, but in case of damage by fire, it is simply made good.
[237d-13] In the insurance companies specified by Masius, loc. cit., 176, the aggregate amount of their insurance, stood to the amount necessary to cover it, by means of receipts from premiums, reserve, and joint-stock capital:
| In the Leipzig Fire Insurance Company, as | 100:1.87 |
| In the Trieste Fire Insurance Company, as | 100:1.80 |
| In the Elberfeld Fire Insurance Company, as | 100:1.19 |
| In the Aix-Munich Fire Insurance Company, as | 100:1.15 |
| In the Cologne Colonia Fire Insurance Company, as | 100:2.44 |
| In the Karlsruhe Phœnix Fire Insurance Company, as | 100:3.7 |
| In the Berlin Fire insurance Company, as | 100:6.3 |
| In the Gotha, about as (including the four fold after payment note) | 100:2.6 |