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Congress has already studied one such proposal. After the $935,224,000 Missouri River floods of 1951, Missourian Harry Truman blueprinted a federal insurance corporation authorized to underwrite as much as $1.5 billion in disaster policies. To avoid competition with private companies, the federal agency would have issued policies (covering up to 90% loss) only to individuals and companies unable to get disaster coverage from commercial sources. It would also have reinsured any private companies handling such risks. Congress shelved the plan after insurance companies advised against either public or private flood insurance, pointed out that it could not be selfsupporting, would, in effect, be handing out subsidies under the guise of insurance.
To renewed pressure for federal flood insurance last week, A. L. Kirkpatrick, U.S. Chamber of Commerce insurance director, replied that the Government agency would be like a life-insurance company selling policies exclusively to 85-year-olds. A meager $1,000 policy, to be economically sound, would cost a prohibitive $325 a year. Most insurance men hold that the best flood insurance is flood control. Any payments to flood victims, the underwriters believe, should be made—as they are now—on a disaster relief basis.
* Other uninsurable hazards, in addition to flood, tide and high water, are snow, ice, frost and cold weather. Besides fire, the major insurable disasters are earthquakes, lightning, wind (including hurricanes and tornadoes), hailstorms and radioactive contamination.