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Show mense reserve to provide for the ever-present conflagration hazard. When all these are taken from the company's income, very little is left for stock dividends. In the last ten years, in fact, the successful success-ful American companies have suffered an average underwriting loss of about sixty-two hundredths of one per cent. Investment profits cannot be counted because these could have been earned in other fields, without the risk attending fire underwriting. Report of Insurance In-surance Commissioner for the State of Utah, 1914. AND STILL WE KICK AT RATES No other business hazards its capital stock as much as fire in-. in-. surance. Stockholders are likely to suffer heavy assessments or lose their entire investment when conflagrations occur. Hence they should be entitled to good profits in favorable years. Yet taking the average, even of successful companies, there is practically no underwriting profit over a term of years. Stockholders in fire insurance in-surance companies endanger their holdings in bad years, and receive a very meager porfit in good years. The companies must not only meet current losses and expenses and maintain a reinsurance reserve, but they must buUd up an im- |