University of Virginia Library

AN INQUIRY ABOUT INSURANCES.

COMING down from Sacramento the
other night, I found on a center-table
in the saloon of the steamboat,
a pamphlet advertisement of an Accident Insurance
Company. It interested me a good
deal, with its General Accidents, and its Hazardous
Tables, and Extra-Hazardous furniture
of the same description, and I would like to
know something more about it. It is a new
thing to me. I want to invest if I come to like
it. I want to ask merely a few questions of the
man who carries on this Accident shop. For I
am an orphan.

He publishes this list as accidents he is willing
to insure people against.

General accidents include the Traveling Risk,
and also all forms of Dislocations, Broken
Bones, Ruptures, Tendons, Sprains, Concussions,
Crushings, Bruising, Cuts, Stabs, Gunshot

Wounds, Poisoned Wounds, Burns and
Scalds, Freezing, Bites, Unprovoked Assaults
by Burglars, Robbers, or Murderers, the action
of Lightning or Sunstroke, the effects of Explosions,
Chemicals, Floods, and Earthquakes,
Suffocation by Drowning or Choking — where
such accidental injury totally disables the person
insured from following his usual avocation,
or causes death within three months from the
time of the happening of the injury.

I want to address this party as follows:

Now, Smith—I suppose likely your name is
Smith—you don't know me and I don't know
you, but I am willing to be friendly. I am acquainted
with a good many of your family—I
know John as well as I know any man—and I
think we can come to an understanding about
your little game without any hard feelings.
For instance:

Do you allow the same money on a dog-bite
that you do on an earthquake? Do you take
special risks for specific accidents?—that is to
say, could I, by getting a policy for dog-bites
alone, get it cheaper than if I took a chance in
your whole lottery? And if so, and supposing
I got insured against earthquakes, would you

charge any more for San Francisco earthquakes
than for those that prevail in places that are
better anchored down? And if I had a policy
on earthquakes alone, I couldn't collect on a
dog-bite, may be, could I?

If a man had such a policy, and an earthquake
shook him up and loosened his joints a
good deal, but not enough to incapacitate him
from engaging in pursuits which did not require
him to be tight, wouldn't you pay him
some of his pension? I notice you do not mention
Biles. How about Biles? Why do you
discriminate between Provoked and Unprovoked
Assaults by Burglars? If a burglar entered
my house at dead of night, and I, in the
excitement natural to such an occasion, should
forget myself and say something that provoked
him, and he should cripple me, wouldn't I get
any thing? But if I provoked him by pure
accident, I would have you there, I judge; because
you would have to pay for the Accident
part of it any how, seeing that insuring against
accidents is just your strong suit, you know.
Now, that item about protecting a man against
freezing is good. It will procure you all the
custom you want in this country. Because,

you understand, the people hereabouts have
suffered a good deal from just such climatic
drawbacks as that. Why, three years ago, if
a man — being a small fish in the matter of
money—went over to Washoe, and bought into
a good silver mine, they would let that man go
on and pay assessments till his purse got down
to about thirty-two Fahrenheit, and then the
big fish would close in on him and freeze him
out. And from that day forth you might consider
that man in the light of a bankrupt community;
and you would have him down to a
spot, too. But if you are ready to insure
against that sort of thing, and can stand it, you
can give Washoe a fair start. You might send
me an agency. Business? Why, Smith, I
could get you more business than you could
attend to. With such an understanding as
that, the boys would all take a chance.

You don't appear to make any particular
mention of taking risks on blighted affections.
But if you should conclude to do a little business
in that line, you might put me down for
six or seven chances. I wouldn't mind expense—you
might enter it on the extra hazardous.
I suppose I would get ahead of you in

the long run any how, likely. I have been
blighted a good deal in my time.

But now as to those “Effects of Lightning.”
Suppose the lightning were to strike out at one
of your men and miss him, and fetch another
party—could that other party come on you for
damages? Or could the relatives of the party
thus suddenly snaked out of the bright world
in the bloom of his youth come on you in case
he was crowded for time? as of course he would
be, you know, under such circumstances.

You say you have “issued over sixty thousand
policies, forty-five of which have proved
fatal and been paid for.” Now, do you know,
Smith, that that looks just a little shaky to me,
in a measure? You appear to have it pretty
much all your own way, you see. It is all
very well for the lucky forty-five that have died
“and been paid for,” but how about the other
fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-five?
You have got their money, haven't you? but
somehow the lightning don't seem to strike
them and they don't get any chance at you.
Won't their families get fatigued waiting for
their dividends? Don't your customers drop
off rather slow, so to speak?

You will ruin yourself publishing such damaging
statements as that, Smith. I tell you as
a friend. If you had said that the fifty-nine
thousand nine hundred and fifty-five died, and
that forty-five lived, you would have issued
about four tons of policies the next week. But
people are not going to get insured, when you
take so much pains to prove that there is such
precious little use in it. Good-by Smith!