The Washington critic., 1889-03-02
CoLoRED People, AS RISKS.
What Glass tho Insurance Companies
Are Rather Shy OF.

Whht Claas tho insurance companies
Are Rather Shy Of
The following from the Philadelphia
Record, is not without interest to col
orcd readers:
But few negroes carry policies Of in
surance upon their lives The reasons
are various and interesting. 1t has
been amply proved that the American
negro Is not so long Lived as the average
white man. In the first place, not one
in hundred has absolutely pure blood.
There is apt to be some foreign infusion
that may be generations old. Then
mulattoes are particularly liable to CON
sumption or lung trouble. The admiX.
ture Of African and Caucasian blood
produces an inferior race, and only tho
black skinned negroes arc equally hardy
with white men. Besides, the negro
has not yet become thoroughly accli.
mated to the North. When to these
facts are added the negros general
shiftlessness there seems ample cause
for discrimination in the Anglo
Saxon's favor
The industrial insurance companies
do not attempt to conduct a detailed ex-
animation Of applicants. The regular
line companies, however, lay great
stress upon this matter, and right here
lies another difficulty in the negro S
way. 1--WE require every applicant to
give the condition of his parents and
grandparents health and various mat
ters of family history, Of which the
average negro is totally ignorant" said
an agent "If he Is unable to state, for
instance, whether there has been con-
sumption in the family, or what was the
disease that terminated his fathers life,
of course we cannot accept him. Rather
than assume SO dangerous risk we re-
ject him entirely"
A negro owes to his hue decided dis
advantage when he comes to insure his
life. He pays down his weekly in
stallment just like his Caucasian
brother, but when he is dead and gone
and his heirs step up to reap the benefit
Of his foresight, they receive only two
thirds of the amount that would accrue
to white mans relatives. In other
words, there is larger percentage
charged on colored risks than on white
ones, and negro who wants 81 900
policy must pay for it a third more than
If he were a white man. On the same
principle, negro child between 3 and
12 years of age will only be taken at
five cents per week, while white child
Is taken at ten.
This is one of the laws of industrial
insurance that strikes novice as q
curiosity. In the regular life insurance
companies no such rate exists, as there
is no need for it. The number Of col
ored people who take out q policy in
one of these companies is infinitesimally
small. The few who are provident and
wealthy enough to patroaize them are
of the better class, and are generally
good risks. Otherwise they are not
taken at all. The medical examiner of
n prominent insurance company said
yesterday that in his six years service
in that capacity he had not examined
more than half dozen colored ap-
| plicants, and of these three had been
rejected. Other companies show q
similar paucity of negro policy holders.
The discrimination in favor of
Japhets progeny and against the de-
scendants of Ham is due to no sentiment
or race prejudice. 1t is purely matter
Of business. Something less than ten
years ago Massachusetts insurance
company discovered that the mortality
among its colored policy holders was
about twice as great as among the
whites, Moreover, the shiftless, improvi-
dent character Of the people rendered
lapses numerous, and the company
found that the insurance of blacks on
equal terms with whites entailed heavy
lnsspa