Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-02-11
HEARING ON INSURANCE.

| Another hearing was held yesterday before
the Committee on Mercantile Affairs and In
surance, the bill taxing foreign insurance
companies being under consideration.
Hon. J. II. Williams of Augusta, said that
he appeared as disinterested party. The in
situation had been made that money had been
used by the companies to influence legislation
upon this matter. In vindication of himself he
would say that he was not the paid advocate
of any company, but having had an opportu-
nifty of examining the bill under consideration,
found that it contained erroneous principles,
and had volunteered to oppose it. The prac-
teal effect of the bill had already been shown.
He had no objection to an insurance depart
ment, although we had heretofore got along
very well without it.
| The taxation of the business of insurance
companies, whether fire, marine, or life, is
based on an erroneous principle. He would
speak chiefly in regard to life companies. All
the companies of this character that attract
attention in Maine or mutual companies, and
the great bulk of the business is done by these
companies. Thought that Mr.. Paine had
COMPOUNDED mutual with stock companies.
The profits of stock company go to the
stockholder, while the mutual company makes
no money for stockholders, but its earnings
go for the benefit of the insured. He denied
the proposition that these companies are
money making concerns. They have none of
the elements which fall within the range of
taxation. The business which they carry on
is a meritorious one. and does not deserve to
be discouraged by taxation. The business
does not present itself in any aspect as a
money making enterprise. When the dictates
of common humanity prompts man to take
out life policy for the benefit of his family
after he shall have passed from their sight, is
he actuated at all by the idea of making
money? There are some men of large means
who take out policies as means of invest
ment, the same as those who make deposits
in savings banks. If these companies are to
be taxed, why should not savings banks
be taxed, on the same principle? Impose a
tax upon these mutual companies, and they
will return less dividends to the policy hold
ers; so that the people must pay the tax. He
proceeded to show that the more extensive
the field of operations of these companies,
the less the risk, and the lower the premiums,
and that it is not right or just or even policy
to hedge them in. He referred in the most
complimentary terms to Mr.. Paine, but
thought that he had brooded so long over this
bill that he had began to believe that its pas
sage was necessity.
W. F. Morrill,, Esq, of Portland, said he
should confne himself wholly to the consid-
Grafton of life insurance. He objected to the
twelfth and thirteenth sections of the bill as
impossible for companies to comply with
Mr.. Paine states in his report that the sur
plus of the Union Mutual Life Insurance
Company is S3,70S, 1867 over all liabilities
The facts are that he ignores the liabilities
for reinsurance, which amount to $3,943,352
This sum at four and one-half per cent. in
terest, based on the American Experience
table of mortality, will Just meet the amount
of outstanding insurance. Now by such state
mcnts as the Examiner furnishes no man can
tell where any company stands. There is nc
way in which the standing of life company
can be ascertained except by an annual val
uation of each policy, for which no provision
is made in this bill, and which can only be OBJ
tanned at very great expense. 1t seems undel