THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
almost inevitably end in the destruction of large groups of buildings,
 and very often the whole village would burn to the ground.
Villages which were prosperous and flourishing one day would thus
on the next be reduced to desolation.
At that period the peasants had not yet come to realize the necessity
 of insuring against loss by fire. It was necessary, therefore, to
pass a special law making the fire insurance of the peasants’ buildings
 compulsory. The management of this compulsory insurance
was left to the provincial zemstvos. It was they who drew up the
scales and the rates to be applied in appraising the buildings to be
insured, and they also determined the premiums which were collected
 by the same method as local taxes. These premiums were credited
 to a special insurance fund out of which compensation was paid
for fire losses. The zemstvos were also empowered to devote these
funds to other measures designed to combat the fire peril.
The compensation paid on the fire insurance policies under the
compulsory insurance scheme was considerably below the actual cost
of the buildings, and the zemstvos left it to the discretion of the
peasants to pay additional premiums if they desired fuller compensation
 for fire losses. Moreover, the law left it to the initiative of the
provincial zemstvos to organize a voluntary fire insurance for movable
 as well as immovable property on the same basis as that of the
private insurance companies. By 1914 the zemstvo insurance organization,
 which had originally confined itself to the narrow limits
of compulsory insurance, had greatly expanded. With the rising of
the educational level of the population, and thanks to the efforts of
the zemstvos, the compulsory system was gradually becoming a volantary
 one, so that the advisability of abandoning the compulsory
insurance plan was already being seriously considered.
In 1912, the insurance premiums collected in the forty-three zemstvo
 provinces reached the sum of 34,090,497 rubles and was composed
 as follows: compulsory insurance, 14,045,990 rubles; supplementary,
 12,412,058 rubles; voluntary, 7,632,449.
When we bear in mind that the premiums paid to all private
insurance companies in Russia during the same year amounted to
42,954,000 rubles, we gain a fair idea of the importance of the zemstvos
 in the insurance business.
In 1904 and subsequently, some of the zemstvos combined into a
anion for the reinsurance of heavy risks. By 1914, nineteen pro-18