CYCLOPEDIA OF INSURANCE

IN THE

UNITED STATES.

1890.

EDITED BY H. R. HAYDEN.

UNDERWRITER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY,

NEW YORK AND HARTFORD.

1891.

PREFACE.

THE publication of an annual cyclopedia is not a new thing, although its restriction to a specialty like insurance is new. Scattered through the volumes of insurance journals, company and state reports, proceedings of various associations, and papers read or printed by individuals, in pamphlets and in circulars will be found a vast amount of interesting matter which has heretofore been, much of it, consigned to the waste paper basket, and the remainder put away in places where it cannot be found when wanted. In common with all writers on insurance the editor of this volume has found the necessity of having these vagrant items of information gathered together and catalogued, and out of this necessity has grown the belief that their annual publication in convenient form for reference would prove acceptable to the large number of men engaged in the business of insurance. That is our apology for adding another to the insurance publications of the United States.

As to the details of the work as it comes to the reader, many imperfections will readily suggest themselves, and we do not need to speak of them except to promise amendment in future volumes.

We have had many suggestions from underwriters, who have evinced an unusual interest in the work as it has been in progress, and have endeavored, as far as practicable, to meet these suggestions. This has not always been possible, and there is no doubt that many persons will not find in these pages what they most particularly want, or, at least, will not find it treated with the amplitude which they desire. But in many cases what we have done will be sufficient to enable them to refer to the original sources of information. The legal decisions are a case in point. It would be impossible to make a digest of them, but in every