Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1875-03-25
Life Insurance.

that company. They al!ege that
the annual statement OF the com
pany filed on the 5th inst, is in
correct in several important par
ticulars; that the company is not
near so strong as represented; in
fact it is not doing business enough
10 pay expenses; that it has lost
the confidence OF lie people and is
hopelessly insolvent, and ask that
a receiver be appointed.
We read ia the New York SIN
that trial, in which widow
sues to recover the sum due on
the death of her husband, is now
in progress in San Francisco.
The strongest argument that can
be used against tho utility Of life
insurance, nowadays, is certainly
to BE- found in the frequent insol-
vencies and the continuous rec
ord Of lawsuits brought against In
surance companies that refuse to
pay upon the death of the insured.
There are so many Of these compa-
MES that are willing to accept the
premium for years, and never dis
cover flaw in the policy until it
becomes their turn to exhibit tie
cash ! And unfortunately "tbe
glorious uncertainty OF the law" too
often terminates a legal suit in "a
vor of the insurance companies
We remember reading sometime
since, that the General Term of
the Superior Court of New York,
for instance, had just decided that
all insurance company vas night
in refusing TO pay up the sum III
sured upon the life of a man who,
when lie took his policy, said lie
had no regular physician. He
probably resorted to what is CALI
ed buSjness-fb in this case in
order to effect bis insurance at q
lower rate, but although we DO
not justify his resort to. falsehood
in the premises, we maintain, and
so does common sense, that it
should have ritiated his policy
aUhiie he aCaS attire if it vitiated at
all, and not become operative, on
Iy, as a bar to the recovery Of the
insurance after the man was dead
and could not defend the course
he had adopted,
For what purpose, let us ask, DO
insurance companies keep exam
Ling physicians OF their own if
not 10 test the physical soundness
OF those who apply to them for
insurance? If he medical exam
liners are incompetent, they have
no business to draw from the COM
panies; if they are capable examin-
ers, they ought TO be atle to dis
criminate between men of sound
physique and men troubled with
fatal intirmities. But they do not
carefully discriminate, and they
aciU not as long as a company is moi
responsible, for their mistakes-as
long as a company can exact the
premium while the insured party
lives and withhold payment OF
the lnsurance-money on trivial pre-
texts after his death. The law
very properly permits no man to
take advantage of his own wrong;
no more should it permit corpo,
ration to reap the benefit of its
own improprieties. We were
about to say that Reinsurance be-
comes a mere farce, under such
circumstances; but it is something
too serious to be farcical when the
helpless are to be defrauded by in
fuential corporations simply be-
cause they conide in their public
pledges of honor and humanity; it
is something really painful when
the widow and orphan are called
upon in their hour Of grief, to lose
that also which they have long
looked 10 for a subsistence in the
event of their bereavement.
3
/ nCY No railroad train from
Friday last until Tuesday. The
rain last Saturday moved the