The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1886-01-16

New York Mail and Express.

New York Mail and Express.
tempts to defraud life insurance companies
were related at the recent convention held
in Boston Of q lumber of companies
said the attorney OF q well-wnown life in
surance company to q reporter for the
Mail and Express yesterday. Zone was OF
a man in Catskill, N. Y, who made appli-
cation for $4,000 insurance for the bene-
6t of himself and obtained it, and shortly
afterwards obtained an accident policy of
$4,000 In a New England company. l can
best give the story in the language of the
gentleman who told it and in whose com
pany the $4,000 policy was obtained.
.The first we heard of the case,' he said,
was a teiegram that the insured referred to
had been drowned. Ny experience in insur-
ance has led me to look with suspicion
upon all accidental Or mysterious disap.
~pearances. We therefore sent an agent to
Catskill, who reported that the party, in
company with his brother and boy, had
been out fishing at IL o'clock at night in the
Catskill creek, near it's confluence with the
Hudson River, and that he took an oar to
ascertain the depth Of the water, lost his
balance and fell overheard. Search was
made Tor the body by the citizens of the
Oo"A IL OAO 1 Cuc 1uOSO0. W0llo we
were searching for the body on land. It
would be tedious to tell you the skillful
work it required, but suffice it to say we
found the wonld-be corpse in Cleveland.
Ohio, and on his person found a CORES.
pondence written in cipher, and also the
key to, which disclosed an Infamous
conspiracy A case told by the repre-
sentative of another company showed
how an agent tried to secure money fraud
ulently from a company. The insurance
effected through an application pre-
scented in the name of James w. Heirs, OF
Norfolk, Virginia. The agent sent on the
application. It was perfectly clear. The
man who had been examined stood six feet
one inch and weighed 100 pounds. His
measurements were correct. The examine
ton was made by one of the finest and best
physicians in the city of Norfolk and the
certificate was OF course written. Through
the custom which had been adopted by the
association of local treasurers, a receipt
was forwarded for the collection of the an
nual dues to the local treasurer, at the
same time that the policy was sent to
the agent. The local treasurer reported
back to the home office that he could not
lind any such man as James w. Heirs;
there was a man by that name who had
lived there in the November prvious, this
application was made to the Association
the latter part Of February, some five
mouths after the decease of the party in
sured. The beneficiary under the policy +
was a friend OF the agent, the party whom
he had substituted at the time of making
the examination. to whom the money was
to be paid in trust for the widow. He
raj also mentioned in the application as
one Of the friends of the applicant. A fc-
titious set OF proofs were in all probable
ity to be presented to the Association |
in sixty or ninety days or four months,
by the friend of the agent, making the
money, which would have been paid to him, |
ii the company had not investigated the |
matter, in trust for the widow, who never
would have heard of it. She was satisfied
before her husband died, in November, that |
he had obtained some insurance in some |
company, and probably these two men
who put up this job had insured this man
in some other company, making the policy |
payable in some manner to themselves and
had received the amount of the insurance.
another class of frauds upon US are
people who have cancers and know it. A
case of the kind was discovered
last summer. The man who had the cam
Ger obtained $4,000 insurance on his life.
On investigation it was found that he had
been suffering from it for five years, and
TIA liz q OCCu tICftlcO OulEICCu ycdTS VI. |
fore and had been an inmate of an hospital.
1t was also found in the investigation that
different physicians had treated
the man, although in his application to the
company mo was the answer given to the
question whether he had been treated by
any physician within five years. The GER
tifcate was made payable to his estate and
assigned to his wife. 1t was found that
This WON IN knew the facts in the case"
"How about suicides?"
lin the Knights of Honor, two OF three
years ago, from Is to 20 per can't. OF the
death losses were from suicides. They
passed a resolution in their supreme body
10 prohibit the payment of claims from SUI
eide, and their experience has been since
chat time that they have not one-quarter
0f the number of cases of suicide as before
It is a singular fact, as shown in our expe-
that person intending to commit su-
eide determine upon the act SO long before
land and go about it so deliberately. A
'ecent case in point was a man who came
20 the Office of one of our companies and
said that he wanted to get insured. He was
,iven a copy OF the company's certificate
went away. The next day he returned
ind said he did not like the suicide clause.
He was asked his reasons. He said he
go out hunting and accidentally fall
Town and get shot and the company would
he would look up some other COM
)any. A short time afterwards he COM
suicide, and not while out hunting