PREFACE

The volume herewith presented is the twenty-first consecutive annual edition of this publication. The general form of the reports issued in previous years has been continued, a change having been made, how-ever, in the form (though not the substance), of the income and disbursement exhibits, for the purpose of making those items more readily available.

The underwriting, investment and gain and loss exhibits contain all the items necessary to a clear understanding of the net result of the operations of the respective companies, both as regards their under-writing and their investments; and the gain and loss exhibit shows the increase or decrease of surplus during the year under review, explaining the reasons for such change.

Under the heading " Ratios to Premiums Earned," we show the ratios of losses and expenses incurred and of the net underwriting profit or loss to premiums earned; showing also, under the appropriate heading, the ratios based upon premiums written. Companies in their first year, and companies whose income is rapidly increasing, are enabled to show moderate ratios of losses and expenses to premiums written, but the large increase of undischarged liabilities must be taken into account in arriving at the true result of their transactions.

At the end of each report will be found a memorandum of premiums written and losses incurred on miscellaneous classes of business, if any such are written by the company under review. The increasing importance of such miscellaneous classes of business as hail insurance, motor vehicle insurance, etc., makes this information interesting and valuable.

Special care has been devoted to the section embracing Reciprocal or Inter-insurance exchanges, which during the past few years have multiplied in number and in many instances have progressed so satisfactorily as to deserve special recognition. We have carefully investigated the methods and plans of operation of every association of this class in the TJnited States and have reported thereon. To a student of insurance practices the special features of each plan of operation will be found interesting, although the general plan is similar. In connection with this subject, an important article introducing the section of this volume dealing with Reciprocal or Inter-insurance exchanges should be read.

We again thank our subscribers for their continued support of this bureau, and pledge them our best efforts in the future, as we have given them in the past, toward the elimination of weak or fraudulent insurance concerns and of improper insurance practices.

ALFRED M. BEST.

NEw YORK, May 15, 1920.