Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-06-27

best nsfrumen Of m Age-Renewable
Term Insurance-HOw IL pays

The practical and desirable applica-
tons Of life insurance are many more
than were dreamed of in the philosophy
of its originators. Under the pressure of
existing competition and with the inven-
tive genius of the American mind ap-
piled to it. life insurance is almost daily
taking on new forms and developing
new possibilities, as a factor in the social
economy. Some of these plans are
speculative and delusive; but all bear
witness to ahe wonderful fertility of in
vention and the equally wonderful faeil-
ity of adaptation out of which they
spring.
Among the most useful and COM
mendable of these several adaptations of
life insurance to the living wants of
men, and the current demands of the
times in the plan of renewable term
Insurance." recently adopted by the
Mound City Mutual Life Insurnee Com
pany, of st. Louis. Under the ordinary
form of life insurance, says the Chroai-
Gle, the insured must, for a series of
years, pay considerable more for his in
surance than its actual value; because
the annual premium to be an acerage
annual premium must exceed the net
cost in the earlier years by so much
that the excess, carefully husbanded and
improved, will make up the deficiencies
of the later years when the risk is
greater than the premium charged, and
constantly increasing. In no other way
is it possible for an equal annual prem
ium TO carry and cover the risk of dying
for every year of a probable human life.
But in fact a majority, and a large
majority of poliey-holders do not wish
the risk of dying covered during every
year of the normal expectation of life.
1t is only during the productive years;
while the children are being educated
and growing up to manhood and woman
hood, while the husband and father is
exposed to the hazards of active life,
and when the consequences of his death
woulI be most disastrous, that the pro-
lection of a life insurance policy is
needed. 1t is not in any case the life
which is insured; it is the money value
of that life to its dependents. When
that value ceases to exist, or when there
are no longer dependents supported by
it, the necessity and propriety of life in
surance ceases.
But in the calculation of a fixed an
nual premium to be paid upon q policy
which may, at the will of the insured,
be continued through life, it is impossi-
BILE safely to omit provision for the enor-
nous risk of the later years of life, in
the last of which, according to the tabu-
lar assumptions, the death must occur,
and the cost of insurance viii be very
nearly equal to the face of lAe policy.
Life insurance is a good-so supremely
goOd-its protection is so much a
necessity of u present social system
its appeal to all that is sense and all that
is sensibility in man is so fOrcible, that
hundreds of thousands have cheerfully
paid, and are cheerfully paying, in adj
vance for the distant and improbable
risk of the far off years which they may
never reach, or reaching which may be
without kindred or dependents having
an insurable interest in their lives.
And these hundreds of thousands
have been and are paying this excess of
premium, in the face of the fact that not
one in a hundred lives and continues
his policy in force to the extreme limit
of human live.
Is there not some remedy for this bur-
densome and generally useless over-pay-
ment? Two have been tried. First,
that of refunding to the policy-holder
who ceases to need the insurance, or
to pay the premium, an equitable share
Of his previous over-payments. This
would be well enough, if it were not
that because the over-payments have
been assessed for the current expenses,
the equitable share" usually returned,
in whatever form it is returned, is but
an Insignificant fraction of the whole
sum over-paid.
The other remedy has been attempted
in the introduction of term insurance,
!. G., insurance from year to year, o.
term to term, the premium Increasing as
the risk increases, and all obligation on
either side ceasing with the expiration
of the term for which the policy was
originally issued. This, notWithstand-
ing its manifest advantages, has not
been popular, for the reason that at the
expiration of the term no further insur-
ance could be obtained without a new
medical examination. Thus it might
happenthat the policy-holder, just when
he most desired insurance, would be un-
able to obtain it; and the fear that this
might be the case, unwillingness to take
this risk, has led to the popular prefer
ence for the comparatively high priced
life policies and the yet more expensive
endowment.
But now comes the Mound City Mu-
tual Life Insurance Company, with its
plan of renewable term assurances, by
which for a premium but little greater
than that charged for simple term insur-
ances, and much less than the ordinary
life premiums NEARLY fifty per cent. less
than mutual, and about thirty-three per
cent. less than stock rates the life is in
sured for one, two, five or ten years, nth
be'priUiIege ofrenewing the pOicyd at the
end of that time, OithoUt q medical eg-
animation on payment Of the then ad-
vance rate of premium, and provided
the habits of the insured are as good
and temperate as when the policy was
originally issued.
After what we have said above it is
unnecessary to point out the attraction
and advantages of this plan. tits clear
and definite, avoiding disputes about
dividends and surrender values" and
the necessity of tedious explanations
concerning Preserves" 1t commends
itself not only to that large class to
whom cheap life insurance is a neces-
sity; but to those carrying heavy msur-
ances upon any of the ordinary plans,
who may desire additional temporary
assurances to offset the hazard of some
temporary venture.
When one compares the premiums
charged with those of ordinary term in
surance, and, seeing how slight is the
increase, reflects upon the risk to the
company and value to the Insured of
the renewal privilege, his first question
isis this safe? That question is an
/ svered in the affirmative Inv such emi-