The Hawaiian gazette., 1868-06-24

LIFE lNSURANCE.-Ihe enormous growth
in the United States Of Life Insurance, and
the consequent importance to the people that
every company should stand on a firm basis,
has caused numerous laws to be passed to
assure the policy holders against loss. One
of the first questions which presents itself to
person thinking Of insurance is, whether
the company is safe bepond peradventure
and this point settled satisfactorily, renders
the remainder of his calculations merely those
of ways and means, or simply financial.
No amount of legislation can completely
prevent fraud on the part of those whose
characters and principles do not deter them
from cheating and swindling their neighbors,
but it can so hedge about Incorporated com
panies, that they cannot do unlimited mis-
chief, and with board of officers and direc-
tors, whose reputation as business men and
for sterling integrity are well known, they
can be made as safe and perpetual as any
other business institution. In the States'of
New York and Massachusetts, the life insur-
ance companies are compelled to deposit
issuing single policy, and are not permitted
to invest their funds in any other securities
than bonds and mortgages, United States and
State Stocks. They are also obliged to make
sworn statements of all their affairs, both
assets and liabilities, at stated periods, so
that the public may always know the stand
ing and business Of the company. The bene-
fit of these laws is seen, that up to this pres
ent, no company in those two States has
failed, though some of them date back from
20 to 40 years.
Within the past two years an United States
law has been enacted by Congress, which
still fsrther guarantees the insured This
law requires of the companies that IS per
cent of all their funds shall be invested in
government securities, ard be held as a de-
post fund to secure the insured, leaving only
% per cent to be employed in the active bust
ness of the company, and the Investment of
the surplus of this, if any, must be on real
estate mortgages. Whatever then may hap
pen to the company the insured run no risk
of disaster and loss.
The effect of this law has been such, in
giving character and stability to the eompa-
mics Incorporated under it, and SO procuring
for them the public confidence, that many of
the older and wen established companies
have ranged themselves under its provisions
to be on equal legal footing with their new
competitors. Such conditions also must re-
strain the companies from reckless insuring
and unsafe speculation, which has injured
the reputation of some, and tend to keep them
in the legitimate channels of safe business
We know there are some who are thinking
over life insurance, believing as they may
that such insurance is both prudent and wise
The annual increase of life policies demon
strate that the business is based on sound
principles, and has surely taken hold upon
public favor. In no surer way can the man
of moderate means and no expectations pro-
vide against future contingencies than by an
endowment policy, or feel secure by
life policy, that his own death will not be the
most serious disaster to those whom he has
loved and cherished through life.
Some Of these New Ysrk and New Eng
land companies are represented here by
agents, and our residents may find at their
own doors full explanations of the merits
and expense Of that provision against the
future, which is so extensively nowadays
being employed by the people in other lands.