Leap Year’s Added Day Isn’t Viewed as a Bonus by Everyone
Insurance executives may wince twice when they hear a fender-bender or drive by a burning home on Monday.
Auto and home insurance premiums typically are paid by the year. But 1988 is leap year and that means an extra day in February, thus another day of claims for smashed windows, stolen radios, dented side panels, crumpled hoods and for charred houses.
Leap year will cost Woodland Hills-based 20th Century about $1.5 million, Vice President Rick Dinon said. The company receives 760 auto claims a day costing an average of $2,000 apiece. But because premiums are based on monthly accident rates over many years, some of which are leap years, 20th Century will recoup Monday’s loss in the long run, Chief Actuary and Senior Vice President James O. Curley said.
Monday is Feb. 29, the extra day that rolls around only once every four years. Though the day’s romantic implications may have faded in recent years, it still has an economic impact and a colorful history.
For many, the day may go unnoticed, except perhaps for resetting the date on some wrist watches. But the day also means--at least in theory--a free day of rent or public transportation if you pay by the month.
Feb. 29 also means--for many people--an extra day of work and a extra day of pay. But at least one economist says not to worry. It will all balance out before the year ends, explains Kenneth Goldstein, an economist with the Conference Board in Manhattan. In fact, he said, many workers may finish 1988 having worked one day less.
Some employers give an extra holiday during leap years, he said, such as Columbus Day, Labor Day or Martin Luther King’s birthday. In addition, he noted that because of leap year, 1988 will end on a Saturday instead of a Friday.
“The net effect this year is not one more day of work but one more day of vacation,” Goldstein said. For the economy, he added, “the net effect is probably going to be, as in most cases, almost negligible.”
Leap Day Extras
While leap year could cost the nation’s property and casualty insurers about $200 million, it also means an additional day of sales this quarter. Companies with large, long-term leases paid by the year rather than the day will benefit as will industries--such as the hotel business--which make more money on weekdays than on weekends.
“Since it does fall on a Monday, it will have a positive effect on the hotel business. If it were to fall on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, it would have a negative effect,” said Patrick Quinn, vice president for operations of Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels Corp. That’s because business travelers and convention-goers with fat expense accounts stuff hotels on weekdays, while the weekend trade consists of less numerous, more penny-pinching vacationers.
The Census Bureau estimates that about 9,600 babies were born in the United States on Feb. 29, 1984, and that a similar number will be born Monday. Feb. 29 babies include Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, French Gen. Louis Joseph de Montcalm, former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai, band leader Jimmy Dorsey and baseball player “Pepper” Martin.
Since Julius Caesar adopted the Egyptian calendar in 46 B.C., the Western world’s calendars have included a 29th day in February every four years. The extra day is necessary to make the calendar year match the solar year.
A year represents the 365 days it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. But the orbit actually takes 365.242 days. So an extra day is added every four years to make up the difference. If the calendar makers were to stop including leap years, months would begin to be out of sequence with the seasons. By the year 2700, for instance, Christmas Day would occur during what is now mid-summer.
Romantic Past
Leap year was an important and carefully calculated event in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. A 13th-Century Scottish custom, subsequently adopted in France and Italy, allowed women to propose marriage during all but one day of leap year. A Scottish law of 1288 even required that an eligible bachelor who refused such an offer was to be fined “in the sum of one pound.” Only on Feb. 29 were men immune.
But if greeting cards are the measure of a holiday, then leap year has since become a feeble occasion indeed. Kansas City, Mo.-based Hallmark Cards has printed up just 8 designs, compared to about 100 designs for St. Patrick’s Day and roughly 2,000 for Valentine’s Day, spokeswoman Barbara Miller said.
Feb. 29 is not a windfall for florists. Ralph V. Yack, owner of Irvine Florist Ltd., a three-store chain in Irvine, expects no more than a 1% rise in sales, compared to an average Monday. Most of the problem is that leap year comes too soon after Valentine’s Day, so men and women feel as though they have just expressed their romantic sentiments, he said.
Monday will also be a day for resetting those wrist watches that keep track of the date. But owners of digital watches that show the year as well as the date may find that their timepieces are already programmed for leap year, said Collier Smith, program information officer in the Boulder, Co., office of the National Bureau of Standards.
“I’ve got a real old Casio that I’ve had for 10 years and I don’t have to reset it for leap years,” said Smith, whose government agency runs the nation’s ultra-accurate atomic clocks.
