tution switches where needed when the institutions are located; for example, in March, 1894, the Illinois Central Railroad company offered, in case the Hospital for the Insane, which was then about to be established, should be located where it now is at Cherokee, to build a switch to the building site and to maintain and operate it for a uniform switching charge of $4.00 per car. It is probable that offer contemplated the building of the switch in time to handle all material, machinery, and other supplies. required in the construction of the hospital buildings, but the offer was not accepted. As heretofore stated, if the switch were to be built now a charge of $11.50 would be made for switching each car. The importance of having switches to our larger institutions, especially to the hospitals at Cherokee, Independence, and Mt. Pleasant, the Soldiers' Home, and the Industrial School at Eldora, has induced us to gather and submit the foregoing facts. for the information of the governor and the General Assembly. It may be that careful surveys and estimates would show that the desired switches can be constructed and maintained for less than the estimates given us indicate, and that it would be good policy to authorize such surveys and estimates, and the construction of the switches, in case it should appear for the interest of the state to do so. CHAPTER VI. INSURANCE. The losses by fires and storms of property of the various institutions of the state have been large during recent years, and to aid in determining what should be the policy of the state respecting insurance we have collected information in regard to values of state property and losses so far as they can be ascertained and present this information in the table attached to this chapter. We do not present the table as entirely satisfactory but as embodying the most complete and accurate information we have been able to gather; it is at best only approximately correct. It shows that the value of the institutional property of the state subject to injury by fire is now $7,634,262.12, and subject to injury by tornado $6,696,418.90. But this estimate includes the cell houses of the penitentiaries, the wards of the main building of the Hospital for the Insane at Clarinda, the main building and buildings for laundry, boilers, engines and other machinery of the Hospital for the Insane at Cherokee, and the hospital of the Institution for Feeble Minded Children at Glenwood, all of which are of fire proof construction and and not likely to be much injured by fire. Those structures have an aggregate value of about $1,650,000.00, which, deducted from the value of the property heretofore given as subject to loss by fire, leaves $5,984,262.12 as the value of the property which should be insured if the policy of insuring be adopted. The loss to the state by fire since the first building of the penitentiary at Fort Madison was occupied in the year 1841, has been $622,261.43, and the loss by wind and hail has been $38,099.94. The value of property subject to such losses is largely increased from year to year, but the information at our command does not enable us to state what per cent of the value of such property has been destroyed in different years since A. D. 1840. We know that the losses were exceptionally large during the last decade. represented in the table. Within that decade appropriations for property, subject to such losses, including buildings made fire proof, aggregating about $2,500,000.00, have been used by various state institutions, and it is probable that the average value of the property by the state institutions subject to loss by fire was about $4,500,000.00. The losses by fire during that time were $463,355.00, and by tornado $3,083.74. According to the best information obtainable the fire rate for the insurance of such property is about one per cent. per annum, twice that rate for three years, and three times that rate for five years. Had all the combustible property of the different institutions been kept fully insured during the period designated at the fire rate specified for three year terms, the cost to the state would have been $300,000.00 or $163,355.00 less than the amount of the fire losses sustained and would have benefitted the state in that sum. But more than 74 per cent. of the fire losses of the state since the year 1840 occurred during the last decade. It seems probable that the average value of the institutional property of the state during the last sixty years was $2,000,000.00. During much of that time the rates were higher than they are now, but insurance on $2,000,000.00 at current rates for three year terms during the period of sixty years would have amounted to $800,000.00, or $177,738.57 more than the aggregate of the fire losses during that time. Hence it appears, notwithstanding the exceptional losses of the last decade, that the best policy for the state heretofore has been not to carry fire insurance. The cost of tornado insurance at the lowest rates is about one-half of one per cent. for three years, and at that rate the cost of insuring the state property subject to tornado loss would have greatly exceeded the losses by tornadoes which the state has sustained. Our conclusion from the facts submitted is that the policy of the state should be not to carry either fire or tornado insurance, unless in exceptional cases. But we believe it should be the policy of the state to make fire proof the important buildings which it erects hereafter, in which human beings are to be cared for, or in which valuable personal property is to be collected. To do so would involve considerable additional expense, but would be profitable in a long term of years in reducing the danger from fire, in affording greater security for human life and valuable property, and in avoiding the hardships which frequently follow the loss of property not readily replaced, in demand for constant use. It is proper to state in this connection that we have adopted the policy of having insurance carried by each state institution |