may be added the trades of boat-builders, cart-grease-makers, cork-cutters, varnish, flambeau, and lamp-black-makers, hartshorn and vitriol works, oil, silk, and linen manufacturers, and japanners.
Such are the species into which insurances against fire are divided: and that our readers may form some estimate of the expence of insuring goods, &c. against loss or damage by fire, we have subjoined the following brief table, in which the different annual rates, payable at the British Fire-office in the Strand, may be seen at one view.—Beside these rates, however, there is a duty of three shillings to be paid to government, for every policy of insurance where the sum insured does not amount to 1000l.; and of six shillings, if it amount to 1000l. or upwards.
| Common. Hazardous. Doub. Hazard. | |||||||||||||||
| ₤. | s.d. | s.d. | s.d. | ||||||||||||
| Any sum not exceeding |
|
1000 |
20 |
30 |
50 |
|
per Cent. | ||||||||
When the sum insured is large, a higher premium per cent. is demanded; and money, papers, pictures, gunpowder, and jewels, are excluded.—If an article be falsely described, in order that it may be insured at a lower premium, the policy is justly void. An insurance made on the same subject at different offices, must be specified by indorsement on the policy; and, in case of loss, the offices pay a sum in proportion; as well as all the expences incurred in attempting to extinguish fire, or to save goods, even though the endeavours should not be attended with success. And if the value of an article be partially insured, and receive damage by fire, the society is bound to make restitution only to the extent of the sum for which the premium is paid.
III. For lives: by virtue of which, on the demise of the party insured, a sum of money becomes due to the person for whose benefit the insurance was made. In this respect also, several societies grant policies of insurance for certain premiums: and, though our limits do not allow us minutely to specify the rules and rates of computation which different associations have adopted, yet we think it will be useful to exhibit a few particulars relative to the premiums paid by persons, who insure either their own lives, or those of others in which they have a certain interest. In the following table we have stated the rates of insurance on lives, fixed by the Westminster Society (No. 429, Strand), which was established in 1792: it is calculated to shew the premiums for insuring one hundred pounds, upon the life of a healthy person, from the age of eight to sixty-seven years, within the limits of Europe, but not upon the seas, viz.
