Page 422 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S.

place our risks outside our own fund the underwriters to a large
extent get the advantage of these precautions and improvements."
The Committee did not go with Mr. Tweddell to the point of
creating an insurance department " on similar lines to the bank,"
or of arranging a conference ' ' between a few members from each of
"
the Boards of the Wholesale Society and Insurance Company;
but at the September Quarterly Meetings they recommended an
alteration of rules enabling the Society to act as insurers of persons
and property against risks of every description, life assurance
alone excepted. The question then arose of whether this would not
"
trench upon the ground of the C.I.S. No," said the chairman,
"
it would not." Mr. Tweddell, however, took the opportunity of
making his position clear. " There was a strong body of opinion
in the Newcastle district that the Co-operative Insurance Company
was not answering the needs of the co-operative movement in
relation to this big question of insurance. . . . He did not want
his hands to be tied on any future occasion when this important
question came up for settlement." This brought up Mr. Odgers for
the Insurance Society, while Air. Redfearn subsequently was in favour
of an adjournment; but the decision to alter the rules was carried
with only one active dissentient. The Insurance Society then
approached the C.W.S. offering to reinsure its excess risks with the
Wholesale Society and with the S.C.W.S., if the latter cared to join.
Complaint had been made of the company being a member of a
tariff ring. In the event of an acceptance of the C.W.S. , the Insurance
Company promised to withdraw from its association wi+h other
offices, and agree to a joint committee for matters affecting the
three institutions. The C.W.S. considered the offer, but at that time,
as later, they would not bind themselves to accept what, at any rate,
was business of a more debatable quality, a business left after the
more desirable part admittedly had been selected.
The Heckmondwike criticism of the C.W.S. insurance fund in
1892 thus had proved not barren of result, for, simply by calUng
attention to the amount of this reserve, it had set other societies
thinking, and thus had aroused that feeling in the North referred to
by Mr. Tweddell in 1898. But to discover further evidences of a
particular interest in co-operative insurance we must now pass on
to the years 1905-6. In 1905 special conferences were called by the
Insurance Society to advocate the new scheme of collective life
assurance; and both at Newcastle and London the question of
keeping all fire risks within the movement intruded upon the
336