Texas Week, Volume 1, Number 3, August 24, 1946 Page: 9
34 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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HEATBEA TER OLIPHANT
In Fort Worth
Rate Storm Brewing
It was hurricane season again on the
Texas Gulf Coast. The insurance men
were sweating and the householder was
paying. Chances were that, hurricane or
no hurricane, he might be paying more
and more for his windstorm insurance.
One day the cumulus clouds would
laze in from the Gulf, as innocent and
harmless-looking as bolls of cotton. An-
other day the overcast would settle down
and the muggy heat would be overbear-
ing. Another day would be blazing and
cloudless, just like drouth-parched West
Texas save for the dripping effects of
the humidity.
But every day the insurance exec-
utives were uneasy. Every day they
watched the front pages for that fate-
ful advisory: "Tropical storm with winds
of hurricane intensity, central at longi-
24 AUGUST 46! i.
T
b=_ ~ ..
tude , latitude , moving
at -- miles per hour . . . This is a
dangerous storm."
They remembered a year ago this
month:
Friday, August 24, 1945: A "danger-
ous hurricane" was discovered in the
Gulf 550 miles south of Houston.
Saturday, August 25: Houston and
South Texas boarding up. Two fishermen
drowned off Padre Island in a 50-mile
wind. Hurricane warnings up from Gal-
veston to Corpus Christi.
Sunday, August 26: Hurricane, with
maximum 101-mile-per-hour wind, hit
Corpus and a 200-mile strip of the Texas
coast.
Monday, August 27: Reports of heavy
damage along a 400-mile strip of coast.
On this night a tornado struck the
northern outskirts of Houston, killing
one, injuring 15, did $35,000 damage.
Tuesday, August 28: The hurricane
had roared inland, was diminishing. First
comprehensive damage reports put losses
at $15,000,000.
Wednesday, August 29: Damage esti-
mate went up to $20,000,000 as the blow
ended with rains on Central Texas hills.
Insurance Trouble-
Texas' unusual weather, about which
the state is wont to brag, was playing
havoc with the insurance business. In
nine and one-half years, up to and in-
cluding the San Antonio debacles, gen-
eral insurance companies in Texas had
paid out in damage settlements $23,000,-
000 more than the premiums they had
received for windstorm insurance, said
Raymond S. Mauk, former state fire*
insurance commissioner and now sec-
retary of Houston's big American Gen-
eral Insurance Company.
But Texas' insurance men weren't just
sWeating and paying as this 1946 hur-
ricane season opened. They were holier-
ing.
On January 3, 1944, the state board
of insurance commissioners granted
something new in windstorm insurance,
a $50-deductible clause for the coast area.
If the insured wishes, of course, he can
get a full coverage policy by paying
$12 extra for each dwelling unit.
40 Times More
But this way he pays $12 for $50
worth of insurance, or 40 times the
present rate. The insurance men don't
want to sell full coverage insurance.
And that isn't all. The insurance men,
still taking a beating, went back to the
state board last year. In November they
were granted a rate increase. On in-
clusive windstorm coverage (hail, hur-
ricane, cyclone, airplane damage, and
several other items) the raise in the
seacoast area was from 50 cents per
hundred to 60 cents, or 20 percent. The
seacoast area includes two layers of
counties along the Gulf, the counties
bordering the Gulf and the non-border-
ing counties adjacent to those coun-
ties. Inland windstorm rates were raised
from 37 to 42 cents per hundred.
But this still didn't stop the compa-nies'' losses. In early August, as the 1946
hurricane season opened, the insurance
men were back in Austin. They asked
for a $100-deductible clause, instead of
the present $50-deductible one. If
granted, this would take a great many
additional claims off the companies'
backs. These the homeowner would have
to pay out of his own pocket.
Storm insurance rates normally are
based on five-year experience tables,
and nobody can deny that during the
last five years the companies have had
a rough go of it. If that program were
followed in setting new rates now, the
increase probably would run as high as
75 or 100 percent, it was pointed out.
The $100-deductible plan has been of-
fered as an alternative, would result in
only those having losses paying the
freight, excuse the fortunate ones who
avoid losses.
OVER THE STATE
Crime
With the Department of Public Safety
announcing that rural crime had nearly
doubled in the past 2 1-2 years, crime
in general continued to catch big head-
lines in the states' newspapers last
week ... SAN ANTONIO'S city vice
squad uncovered a thousand examples
of dope peddlers' ingenuity ... a new
angle to the SHERMAN Well Murder
Case was provided when a DENISON
drunk showed investigators a fortune
teller's accurate written description of
the place where Mrs. N. 0. Kreager's
body would be found ... HOUSTON
Contractors formed a co-op to beat the
black market ... Some Houston police-
men went on a week-end fishing trip,
caught 23 watches, a diamond ring and
other jewelry, part of $4,000 worth
stolen recently from a jewelry store..
Reconversion
Everywhere there was evidence of re-
conversion and expansion ... UVALDE
is voting bond issues to begin a $'600,-
000 improvement program in regard to
city and county schools, hospitalization,
drainage, sewer system and streets ...
construction progressed on the long-
sought SABINAL-to-UTOPIA Highway
.. U. S. Senator Tom Connally was op-
timistic that HOUSTON would soon
have a full customs staff at its airport
to handle business which the new inter-
national port of entry will create ...
The State Highway Commission asked
for bids on 280 miles of farm-to-market
road construction and a long list of
highway improvements ... HOUSTON's
4,140 fireplugs got their first coat of
paint since 1941 and the city's Main
Street eight-bus shuttle service started
operation...LAREDO was busy with its
$500,000 building project for the Pan-
American Fair and Livestock Show ...
Uncle Sam approved GOLDTHWAITE
for a food processing and canning center.
TEXAS WEEK 9
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Texas Week, Inc. Texas Week, Volume 1, Number 3, August 24, 1946, periodical, August 24, 1946; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth586553/m1/9/: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Private Collection of the Raymond B. Holbrook Family.