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From the Collection of enactment and decrees of the government for 1921, Administration of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR

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On state property insurance. ( Izv. No. 234, S. U. 69‐554 ).

Article number 554.

Decree of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars.

The Council of Peopleʹs Commissars decided:

1.                   To organize in all areas of the R.S.F.S.R., both rural and urban, state property insurance of private households against the following natural disasters: fires, loss of livestock, hail of crops, as well as accidents on the waterways and land transport.

2.                   For the first time, state voluntary property insurance is introduced, concluded on the basis of special rules by agreement of the insured with the bodies of the State Insurance Department.

3.                   As voluntary insurance is organized and the technical insurance apparatus is strengthened, state compulsory insurance is introduced, which is extended to all private owners of the respective property. The terms for the introduction of state, compulsory insurance are established by the Main Department of State Insurance by agreement with the Provincial Executive Committees.

4.                   State compulsory property insurance applies to all private farms and enterprises, agricultural, industrial and commercial, craft, handicraft, both individual and collective, that is, belonging to artels, partnerships, societies and communes. Compulsory insurance is also subject to state property and enterprises rented by individuals and the above‐listed collectives or temporarily at their disposal on grounds other than lease, and insurance of such is carried out at the expense of their tenants or managers.

Note 1 . Property belonging to cooperative organizations and their associations or transferred to them for temporary disposal by government bodies, in the event that they are not involved in mutual insurance of cooperatives, provided for in Art. 5 of this decree are subject to compulsory insurance in a state insurance organization.

Note 2 . State property insurance does not apply to property owned by citizens of other countries as private property and located within the RSF.S.R. Such property can be insured in a state insurance organization only voluntarily up to the maximum amounts established by the Main Department of State Insurance.

5.                   Cooperative organizations are granted the right, instead of compulsory state insurance, to organize mutual insurance of their own property against natural disasters with the right to independently determine the forms, types of insurance and tariffs subject to the following conditions:

1)                   insurance of their property by cooperative organizations is carried out under the control and supervision of the Main Department of State Insurance and is standardized by the rules approved by the said Department;

2)                   insurance risks taken by cooperatives in excess of the amounts established by the Main Department of State Insurance are reinsured in a certain quota (share) established by agreement of cooperatives with the Main Department of State Insurance in a state insurance organization.

Note . In the event that an agreement on the size of the reinsurance quota between the cooperative organizations and the Main Department of State Insurance is not reached, the size of the said quota is established by the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Finance.

6.                   It is not allowed to insure any property located within the RSFSR, as well as reinsurance thereof in foreign insurance organizations, without special permission in each individual case of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars.

7.                   To manage state property insurance, the Main Department of State Insurance is established as part of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Finance, into the jurisdiction and order of which, immediately upon the issuance of this decree, all apparatuses of the former insurance departments of the Supreme Council of National Economy, reorganized by decree of December 18, 1920 ( No. 100, article 538 ) to the Office of the Commission for the Elimination of Property

Insurance in the center and in the localities with all their affairs, loans, property and employees. Insurance Subdivisions of the Financial Departments of the Local Executive Committees should be organized locally, under the general direction and control of the General Directorate of State Insurance.

8.                   To instruct the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Finance to develop and issue, by agreement with the departments concerned, detailed regulations, rules and instructions for organizing state property insurance. To charge the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Finance with the development of a method for establishing the amount of insurance premiums and the amount of insurance remuneration depending on the change in the ruble exchange rate.

9.                   Decree of December 18, 1920 on state economic aid in case of natural disasters, as well as the decree of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars of May 14, 1921 (No. 48, Art. 236 ) in the part concerning aid in case of natural disasters, in accordance with this decree, change, instructing the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Agriculture, the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Social Security and the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Finance to issue the necessary instructions on this issue within 2 weeks.

Signed by:

Chairman of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin) .

N. Gorbunov, Administrator of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars .

Secretary L. Fotieva .

October 6, 1921.

Published in No. 234 Izvestia of the All‐Russian Central Executive

Committee of Soviets dated October 19, 1921.