The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-02-19
Does Life Insurance Insure 2


practice Of the Companies, the Phil
adelphia Chronicle thinks, may
cause it to appear clearly whether
life insurance is reality or whether
it insures solely to the benefit of the
insuring Company, and whether the
heirs of the insurer are to derive any
advantage from insurance. There is
in the Company's Office great suav::-
ty to overlook trifling Disqualified
tions, and, in short, u general good
naturedness when the risk is being
taken which is out of all proportion
to the growl which goes up when a
policy-holder has the impotence to
die. This is not true of all Life Tn
surance Companies; if it we're, it
would soon make an end of their
business.
There are Companies, however.
which pay no loss they can avoid
They keep lawyers by the year, and
are in the habit of showing more or
less fight over claims which promise
the barest possibility Of a flaw in
them. Practically man may drink
as hard as he likes, and the Compa
ny will keep on taking his money
without making any trouble over it.
When that man dies, the going
Company is suddenly impressed
with the irregularity of his life and
the safe door is slammed in the suit
or's face, to be opened only after a
weary contest and a verdict against
the Company.
The Mutual Life Insurance Com
pany OF New York, which ought to
be above such petty subterfuges,
was, recently, beaten in an effort to
withhold payment on a $4,000 pol
icy. The Company set up, first,
that the man had killed himself;
secondly, that he was of grossly in
temperate habits, which had "tend-
ed to shorten his life;' and, thirdly,
that he had misrepresented his
drinking habits when he was insur-
ed. In other words the Company
wanted verdict of adeath from
intemperance, superinduced by a
gunshot wound" Neither the Judge
nor the jury fell in with this grab
game, and the result was verdict
for $4,000, with interest. From
this the Mutual Life will appeal.
1t is noticeable that Insurance
Companies that don't want to pay
can afford to fight claim to the last.
They have their Golfers full of the
money of insurers, and they use it
to beat off the people who want to
derive some benefit under the so
called esmutualD contract. IF a mans
family has to earn the amount of his
policy by fighting for it in the
Courts, life insurance becomes a
luxury which few families can afford
to inherit. Legislation having fail
ed to do much by way of clearing
up the relationship between insurer
and insured, we shall have to rely
on the "Judge-made. law" to Sc tile it
for all time that an Insurance Com
pany which, after due opportunity
for inquiry, takes risk, is bound
for the amount of the policy so long
as it is kept alive by payments, no
matter whether a man browns him
self in whisky or blows off the top
Of his head.
Life Insurance Companies can af-
ford to take all the chances of death.
and they ought to be held up to the
contract. In the case of so rich
Company as the Mutual of New
York there is not the slightest ex-
cuse for trying to evade or ANIMAL
the contract. Between two men
that transaction would not be con-
sidered honest. The fact of there
being corporate greed on one side