The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1869-04-14
For THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN.
LIFE ASSURANCE.

The present number will be occupied With
extracts from an article which appeared in
recent number of New York paper, full Of
valuable information and suggestions, on the
subject before us. The style is so charac-
teristic that the reader will hardly need to
be told that we quote from the Herald
Says the writer:
Everybody has noticed the elegant struc-
lures of iron, granite and marble which are
going up on Broadway, erected by two OF
the life insurance companies of New York,
and everybody has remarked that the foun-
dations of those buildings are laid deep and
solid, with the evident intention on the part
of their builders of their lasting till Macau-
lays New Zealander sits on the ruins of the
new East river bridge, hereafter to be built,
and exclaims,
Chaos OF ruins, who can trace the void,
And o er this darkness casta lunar light
And say there is'' or "was" where all is doubly
night?
or words to that effect; and perhaps the
aforesaid everybody has wondered where the
money came from or how such purely benev.
olent and liberal corporations can pay i'm
mense dividends to the policy-holders, and
pay such large policies to the widows and
orphans of those who had the foresight to
insure their lives before shutting off their
mortal coil, and thereby leave their wives in
financial condition which enables them to
live without taking in shop-work from the
tailors' shops or working in tobacco factories.
The public cannot help noticing also that
every year new litter of life insurance
companies emerges into notice with its re-
quisite capital of 100000 all paid in, with
its long list of directors and officers, and
with new and original plans of insurance,
which are confidently asserted to be great
improvement upon anything which has pre-
ceeded it, and that papers and magazines
devoted mainly to the subject of life insur-
ance are doing thriving business. Now,
how the thing is done, and especially how
life insurance companies are started, is a
mystery to great many, but we will en-
deavor to explain it. There are many men
in this city who have failed in mercantile
life or in unfortunate speculations, and have
managed to save few thousands out of the
wreck of their fortunes and are anxious to
start anew in life, and they look upon life
insurance as a new field where a harvest of
greenbacks may be reaped. There are some
agents too, who, after successful career in
managing general agency, are ambitious
to have their names before the public as of
fcers of the Great Get email and TakA-em-
in Life Insurance Company, with comfor-
table salary of few thousands, which will
afford them handsome support through
life. One hundred thousand dollars must be
subscribed and paid in to the insurance de-
partment at Albany; for Mr.. Burnes, the
Superintendent, insists upon this important
preliminary as a security that the heirs of
the insured will not be cheated out of their
just dues through mismanagement and final
insolvency. When this is accomplished and
a few thousand more are raised to meet the
current expenses of the company, and a plan
of insurance and table of rates have been
adopted, an elegant Office is opened on
Broadway, fitted up with costly office fur
niture, sofas, carpeted floors, easy chairs,
ponderous blank books for recording policies
and accounts, with clerks, book-keepers, and
Office boys, the machine is ready for opera
ton. A new life insurance company, like a
new mercantile firm or newspaper, is al.
ways an experiment. Its officers and its
name are scarcely known outside of very
small clique, and it has to come in competi
ton with companies whose agents are in ev-
cry city and State, and whose assets are reck
oned from ten to twenty-five millions. This
is uphill work, but it is an ordeal through
Ahich every new company must 60. 1t must
have the applications for insurance, and tc
get them it must have solicitors and agents
at any price The agents of the older ant
we'll established companies-of companies
which depend upon their past history ant
successful prestige, and consequently pay
only moderate commission on premium
E received-are waylaid and offered higher
rate of commission to work for the new
company. In the infancy of life insuranc,
the highest commission paid on new business
was only fifteen or twenty per cent; but now
, when competition is brisk, thirty or fort.
per cent. and even more in case of broker
, age, is often paid by new companies. Blu
there is no help for it. Applications mus
be had, policies must be issued, the new com
> pany must make good show the first two o
three years at any price, and after that tn
way is comparatively easy. Accordingl..
e the statistics of many of our new life insur
e ance companies show that during the frs
r two years the commissions and office expense
? have averaged from fifty to eighty per cent
of the premiums received. To Offset this
however, it may be remarked that the NOR
r tality experienced by a company during tn
: first FIVE years of its existence is usually ver
p small, much less than the rate of mortalit
I upon which the premiums are based, an