BET YOU ANYTHING
SIR, —I was astonished to find anybody querying my statement that motor insurance is unprofitable. Is Mr. Malbert the sort of man who queries whether Northerners do work harder than Southerners or Whether women do bear pain better than men and similar well-known facts'?
Figures can prove anything and to prove my point I quote those of the last three years (for which statistics are available) when the Board of Trade shows that motor insurers established in Great Britain received in premium £858 million and paid in claims and expenses £842 million—a profit of £16 million showing a return of under 2 per cent.
For comparison purposes the fire premium for the same three-year period was £831 million with claims and expenses £783 million—a margin of £48 minion, nearly 6 per cent., and yet 1959 and 1960 were our worst two years for fire losses—vide Chairman of the Fire Offices' Committee (May, 1960). That is why insurers consider motor business unprofitable. The fact that Mr. Malbert has been able to find three companies (not one with a big motor income) that had a good year is no more Significant than that Lloyds motor underwriters had a resounding 20 per cent. profit ratio that year. It Is the market experience as a whole that matters, and insurers do not seem to think that under 2 per cent. gives them .much of a margin.
A. S. WHITE
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