The Public Supervision of Workmen's Compensa Tion Insurance

Abstract

The essentially social character of workmen's compensation insurance is, happily, no longer open to debate. Experience has shown, and informed opinion has everywhere recognized, that efficient insurance is indispensable to the public purposes for which workmen's compensation laws are enacted. Work accident insurance is thus affected with a public interest paramount to every private consideration, and the right and duty of the state to conserve that interest, either through direct governmental agency or through public supervision of private insurers, will scarcely be denied even by the extremest advocates of private enterprise. Therefore, as respects those jurisdictions which allow commercial insurance to exploit this field, it becomes important to define the aims, the instrumentalities and the limitations of public supervision.