The Bismarck Tribune

HAIL LOSSES PAID IN FULL

Losses During Year Total $3,000,000 Department Summary Reveals

Although hail losses in North Dakota were both severe and numerous during the summer of 1927, indemnities were paid in full without making the hail tax levy unduly burdensome, according to the annual report of the state hail insurance department now being distributed.

The report contains data on a summary of the business of the department in 1927 and marks the completion of the ninth year of operation of the state hail insurance department.

"The year will go down in the history of hail insurance in North Dakota as a bad hail year," the report said. "The department received reports of 16,780 claims during the season as compared with 9,744 during 1926. It is only natural that with such an increase in the number of claims reported that an increase in indemnity allowed would follow. Such was the case. The increase in acreage insured was found to be 25 per cent whereas the increase in losses was about 95 per cent."

"The hail department was called on to pay the farmers of the state more than $3,000,000 for hail losses during the year."

The report on the indemnities and the tax levy is based on a compilation of figures over a period of nine years. For 1927, the number of losses reported was 16,780, with a resulting indemnity of $3,274,559.93 paid. The figures for 1926 were 9,744 claims and $1,702,065.76; 1925, 8,100 claims and $1,364,458.97 indemnities.

The highest amount paid out by the department was in 1924 when 25,667 claims were allowed and $4,489,903.97 paid.

The financial condition of the hail department will permit the elimination of the flat state hail tax, the report said. It was decided at previous meetings that when the surplus in the department should reach $4,000,000 the flat tax would be eliminated, and the figures for this year show the amount to be $4,016,611.23.

Contention that a reserve fund for future abatements is justified is made in a report of L. E. LaFrance, accountant for the department. The report is contained in the general report of the hail department.