Animal Actuaries

At Chicago's recent International Livestock Exposition, none of the hopeful breeders vying for blue ribbons were half so fidgety as a pair of Illinois businessmen named Frank W. Harding and Clinton Tomson. "One good fire and we would have had it," says Harding. The reason: Harding, 51, and Tomson, 53, are partners in the American Livestock Insurance Co. of Geneva, Ill., biggest and fastest growing of the U.S. companies that specialize in insuring animals.

Just ten years old, American Livestock now operates in 35 of the 50 states, writes 5,000 policies a year. When Harding and Tomson decided to form the company, both were livestock breeders and Harding also acted as U.S. agent for Lloyd's of London's livestock insurance business. "This is a crap-shooting business," says Harding. "We're betting against the roll of the dice." So far, he and Tomson have called the dice pretty well. Since 1954, American Livestock's annual premium volume has nearly tripled, to $1,800,000, and the company has made a profit in all but two years.

Bent Necks. American Livestock's biggest competitor is Hartford Live Stock Insurance Co. ($1,250,000 in 1962 premiums), a subsidiary of Hartford Fire Insurance Co., which covers mostly saddle horses, cattle and dogs. New York's Animal Insurance Co. of America ($700,000 in premiums) writes most of its policies on horses; it paid the biggest loss ever on a single animal--$1,000,000, when the race horse Bally Ache died after a training accident two years ago.

American Livestock gets 60% of its business from insuring cattle (usually stud bulls at premiums amounting to 6% of the animal's value) and 30% from insuring horses. The firm also insures dogs, cats, hogs, sheep, turkeys ("very hazardous because they're so vulnerable to changes in the weather," says Harding), mules, ponies, lions, tigers, monkeys, walruses ("We lost two of those damn things"), seals, elephants, gazelles and giraffes ("We have to make certain that their necks aren't bent during shipment"). They once insured a pink porpoise ("He survived nicely"), and they currently have a four-month policy on a pair of white rhinos at $5,000 each.

The Deadly Mosquito. American Livestock's animal clients get into some strange accidents. Lightning is one of the most frequent killers; once a bolt running along a fence killed a whole line of cattle leaning against it. Another time, a swarm of husky Florida mosquitoes smothered a herd of cattle by clogging their noses and throats. Some animals have become so rattled at having their hoofs trimmed that they have broken their backs, and one prize Brahman bull being flown to a show in South America managed to work open the plane door and leap out.

Harding and Tomson hope some day to make Animal Livestock a worldwide business; but for all their readiness to assume risks, they draw the line at such freaks as two-headed pigs and six-legged dogs. "Deformed animals aren't good physical risks," says Frank Harding, "and besides, it isn't dignified."

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