出版社：Scandinavian University Press/Universitetsforlaget
摘要：From the 1890s to World War I, the fire insurance mutuals hadinsured larger values than their main competitor, the state-ownedNorges Brannkasse, in the countryside. In 1922 twenty-three localfire insurance mutuals established a common reinsurance mutual,Samtrygd, which also functioned as an umbrella organisation foran increasing number of members. The main initiators behind Samtrygdwere not the fire insurance mutuals, which were predominantly locallyoriented, but the Farmer’s Union and a commercial bank, BøndernesBank, which guaranteed Samtrygd’s start-up costs. Samtrygd solvedone of the structural weaknesses of the local fire insurance mutuals:lack of a cost-efficient reinsurance, which was necessary to insureever more expensive buildings and chattel. From the late 1920s,more than half of local fire insurance mutuals were members of Samtrygd.Thus, with the assistance of Samtrygd the local fire insurance mutualswere able to consolidate their market position in countryside inthe inter-war period despite the fact that fire insurance continuedto be the only form of non-life insurance they could offer. Theircore customers and members, the farmers, bought cars and lorriesin significant numbers which demanded other forms of non-life insurance.Samtrygd’s initiators had planned that the fire insurance mutualsshould expand into more densely populated areas and possibly thesuburbs in the municipalities in the countryside. However, the fireinsurance mutuals, governed by the local farmer elite, decided tostick to their last, and abstained from engaging in the growingmarkets in such areas.
