The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-01
WOMEN AND LIFE INSURANCE,
Denial of DR. HammOnd's Statements-Terms
Which Women Are Insured.
New York Tribune

Denial of DIR. HammOnd's Statements-Terms
Which Women Are Insured.
New York Tribune.
DR.. William A. Hammond declares in the
current number of the North American Re-
view that life insurance companies refuse to
insure women's lives because they cannot de-
pend upon what women say with reference
to themselves. ION account of woman's in
ability to be exact in regard to her age, the
diseases she may have had, her mode of life,
and other matters in which eXactneSs is re-
qured, life insurance companies decline to
issue policies to her. DR.. Hammond furth-
er explains that though woman abhors false
hood, she does not understand the neces-
stv of being exact in the ordinary affairs of
everyday life. She tells her physician, for
instance, that she has eaten nothing for
month, and if pressed as TO whether she
means what she says, replies
that really she eats nothing at
all, and if still further pressed and
requested to consider for a moment the
meaning of the words she uses, answers with
entire Inconsistencies that there is any diff
ference in the two statements, that she may
take a roll and an egg and a cup of coffee
for breakfast, and an infinitesimal piece of
chicken and a modlcum of pie for her din
ner,' but that she does not call that any,
thing 1t is owing to this difficulty of be-
ing exact that the female mind experiences
mathematics"
An officer of the New York Life Insurance
Company, who, in the absence of Morris
Franklin. acts as president of that company,
was asked yesterday whether it is true that
life insurance companies decline to issue
policies to women because of the inexactness
of their statements respecting themselves
ut is not true" he replied.
"Why. then, do life insurance companies
decline to issue policies to women?'
They don't decline. We issued q couple
of such policies last week.
But the companies do not consider wo-
men to be good risks do they?'
Undoubtedly not" replied the acting
president.
''Why not?'
Because of the difficulty of making an ex-
haustive physical examination of them.
When men apply to have their lives insured,
we examine their bodies thoroughly. But
in the case of women, considerations of
deicacy prevail, and it is neutrality-suspicious.
l might say impossible-to obtain com
prehensive knowledge of their physical con-
dition. This difficulty, however, arises not
from the inexactness of their statements but
from the inexactness of our knowledge re-
speeding the state of their bodies"
Are women less exact in their statements
than men are?'
81 do not think so. Nor do I think that
any man who has a good general knowledge
OF women will maintain such proposition"
"My observation and experience are that
men are just as inexact as women. A few
days ago we saw in the papers the names of
two Western men who had signed certificates
to the effect that certain quack medicine
had cured them entirely of kidney disease.
As these men had only recently declared to
u.s. in their applications for life-insurance,
that they had nothing the matter with their
kidneys and never had had, we were enough
interested in the matter to cause some inqui-
ries to be made. We found that they had
signed the quack medicine certificates with
out much thought of what they were doing,
and that really their kidneys had not gwen
them any trouble. They probably supposed
that the quack medicine had done them some
good, but were inexact enough to say that it
was their kidneys that had received benefit.
l think men are just as liable to such mex
actness as are women. There are few men