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Show I BEN'S GENIUS BENEFITS 3,000,000 FARMERS I i f V.TmV- 1 There was a time, in the early 18th century, when neighbors stood or sat idly by and let insurance company-sponsored fire brigades do the firefighting when fire-insured farmhouse or barn caught fire, since only the company stood to benefit by putting out the fire before total destruction. Now, however, independent farm mutuals patterned after a mutual insurance company founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1752 are saving farmers from coast to coast millions of dollars annually. A FARMER stirred restlessly on his corn-shuck mattress In the bedroom bed-room of his 18th century frame home located in the outskirts of an eastern town. Slowly, from the depths of sleep, he realized what had awakened him. Smoke! Instantly, he was wide awake and shouted at his son to saddle the mare and ride to town for help. Meanwhile, the farmer, his wife and two daughters formed a four-man bucket brigade and heaved water from leather buckets on the flames. Townspeople Respond. In town, men were running to stables sta-bles where teams of horses were being be-ing hitched to odd-looking rigs festooned fes-tooned with lines of leather hose and laden with buckets. The first company on the scene of the blaze racketed to a halt, and the captain raced to the building with at ladder under his arm. He set tha ladder against the front of tb house and climbed to a spot just under the second-story windows. There, by the light of the fire leaping from the eaves, he carefully care-fully examined a metal plaque nailed to the clapboard, known as a "fire mark." "Itrs the New Haven's boys," he ahouted, and hurriedly clambered down the ladder and trotted back to the road. His company of fire fighters fight-ers found seats on the rig from which they watched the progress of the fire. "Innocent" Bystanders. In the meantime, other fire companies com-panies had arrived at the farmyard, but as soon as they received word that the little metal plaque on the wall read "New Haven Home Insurance Insur-ance Company" they, too, sat idly by. It was left entirely up to a fire brigade sponsored by the New Haven company to fight the darting tongues of flame, for the fire mark had shown that only this company stood to benefit by putting out the fire. Gradually this cold-blooded 18th century attitude gave way to a more humane concern for the domestic tragedies which follow a fire. Company-sponsored fire brigades like the fictitiously-named one above were supplanted by volunteer community organizations. Farmers thumbed through pages of history and adopted a mutual insurance in-surance principle which had been pioneered by one of America's great statesmen, best remembered today for his discoveries in electricity. According to material gathered ' and annotated by H. L. Kenni-cott, Kenni-cott, secretary of Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty company, it was Benjamin Franklin who founded in 1752 a mutual insurance insur-ance company which has sur- ' vived and prospered to this day and which laid down a pattern of operation for the many small, independent farm mutuals that now are saving farmers from coast to coast millions of dollars annually. The National Association of Mutual Mu-tual Insurance Companies estimates that 16 billion dollars worth of rural property is protected by more than 1,800 farm mutuals. Kennicott explains, "Farm mutuals are 'grass-roots' organizations. They are formed by the fanners themselves them-selves and usually serve local areas varying from a township to a few counties." Here's how Kennicott says a typical typ-ical loss is handled under the farm mutual system: A farm near Alton, Illinois, suffered suf-fered minor damage from a windstorm. wind-storm. Next day a farmer who lived about 10 miles away and served as the part-time secretary for the local farm mutual, stopped at the damaged dam-aged farm on his way to town. It was milking time, so the secretary just walked into the barn. He found the farmer and his son there and said to them: "Yon lost a little roofing. I suppose that will take about three dollars worth of shingles, and you and your son will nail it on. Here are the three dollars." He settled the loss and got a receipt. re-ceipt. As simple as that. The national association to which a majority of farm mutuals belong is justifiably proud in pointing out that the total volume of insurance carried in farm mutuals is sufficient to cover three-fourths of its value more than half of all the farm prop- , erty that is subject to insurance against fire. |
