The insurance company will examine the property that is offered for insurance. What does this inspection mean? Whatever the details, the following points will always be taken into consideration. The general conditions from a civic point of view, in a town or city in which the risk is located, will be considered. These will include not merely the fire department and those related directly to it, such as water supply, or those related directly to the business of insurance, but many things which perhaps are not ordinarily thought of, such as the kind of streets, police force, high winds and numerous other points. When this foundation has been laid, the individual risk will be considered its construction, occupancy, hazards, exposure that is, its relation to the surrounding properties, its fire prevention devices, the general tone of the management, usually called housekeeping. Just as there are no two human beings alike, so in all probability there are no two risks that are absolutely identical. Details of inspection. In the case of the individual risk, some of the points that are noted are as follows: The kind of building, as frame, ordinary, or fireproof; height; area; roof; thickness of floors, floor openings such as stairways, elevators, dumbwaiters and protection, if any. The business conducted, floor by floor, including the nature of the property on each floor; any work that is done, the number of hands employed in the work and the kind of machines used. The majority of fires in the United States are due to carelessness. Therefore, the inspector goes very carefully into the question of unsafe heating or lighting apparatus, untidiness, broken floors, windows, oily floors and other points which denote a somewhat substandard conception of ousekeeping. Fire-fighting devices will be carefully scanned such as the fire pails, the extinguishers, stand pipes, sprinkler system and anything of that nature on the premises. The care of packing material and kind of doors which separate one building from another will be taken into consideration. When the insurance inspector is thru with the property he probably knows many things about it which the insured himself never suspected and in fact may never have had time to investigate
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