ABSTRACT
In fire insurance, contracts are only for one year, just as in marine insurance much of the liability is limited to the single voyage, so that there is no necessity for the elaborate calculations required in life insurance business. There are an indefinite number of businesses conducted in buildings that involve much greater risks, and a few industries of an inflammable kind. It is almost impossible to build up a new fire insurance business in these days, yet we frequently see prospectuses of new fire offices launched in London or in provincial districts to undertake certain lines of business assumed to be too severely assessed in premiums by the existing offices. About sixty different organisations carry on fire insurance of one form or another in the United Kingdom, and an important proportion of these devote their organisations and means to special lines, such as the insurance of marine fires, of property connected with the cotton industry, and of ecclesiastical property.
