66       REPORT or THE COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE.


Inter-insurers associations are a mutualized form of Lloyds
associations. While Lloyds associations hadI their origin in
Edward Lloyd's coffee, house in Tower Street, London, England,
as far back as the 17th century, inter-insurers associations are
of more recent origin and had their first inception in this
country.
The first inter-insurers association, as far as we have been
able to determine, was organized in the office of Weed & Ken-
nedy, Pine Street, New York City, in 1881. This association was
called the Subscribers at Individual Underwriters, and it was un-
doubtedly brought into existence because of the desire of certain
large mercantile houses in New York City and adjoining cities for
a lower rate of insurance. *The belief that insurance protec-
tion could be purchased at a much lower rate was the control-
ling factor in bringing together the heads of these different
establishments. The early records show that they desired to
demonstrate to insurance companies the fact that they were
paying more for their protection than they really should.
They reasoned that, if the experiment were to be tried at all
they must be left free from the scrutiny and government of
insurance departments. In order to devise a scheme that would
meet these requirements, their plans were laid before the
insurance  firm  of Weed    &  Kennedy.    This firm   re-c-
ommended the appointment of an attorney-in-fact, through
which subscribers might exchange contracts. They gave. anl
opinion, in effect, that a plan in which each subscriber
would be bound for himself alone and not jointly with any other
subscriber could not be construed as being an insurance com-r
pany and would not, th erefore, be under the jurisdiction of
the different departments of insurance. Consequently, thisi plan
of insurance was finally adopted.
Weed & Kennedy acted as attorney-in-faet for the various sub-
scribers for about four years, when the attorneyship was trans-
ferred to John R. Waters of New York City, who has since been
called the father of reciprocal insurance in the United States.
Mr. Waters affixed the names of the members of the exchange, who
*In a letter dated October 24th, 1913, Weed & Kennedy stated
that one of the reasons for the formation of inter-insurers associa-
tions was the inability of merchantz to get companies to carry their
stock withoutt going to t1iropP'