Workmen's advocate., 1889-06-15

essay the writer says:
 1t is customary to view insurance contracts as separate, distinct agree ment, whereby one person, either nat ural or artificial. in consideration of a premium paid, stipulates to indemnify a designated beneficiary for certain contin- gent losses of life or of property. This is too close an inspection of insurance business to judge of it as whole. It is like trying To ascertain the size and structure of building from the study of each brick in it. The perspective is too short. The true method is to ex- anime insurance as whole, looking at the contributions and expenditures in bulk rather than in detail, and viewing the relations to each other of the various classes of persons entering into insur- ance transactions rather than the mere contracts of individuals themselves
 Proceeding by this method, the first fact we ascertain is that 623 companies furnishing the most of the insurance taken in the United States are in reality not insurers at all, save in few excep- tional instances forming but minute percentage Of their total business. In 1887, for example. the contributions of premiums paid by the people to these companies aggregated $27l ,223, 7S1. De- ducting the interest on loans-such in- terest amounting to about SIC, 100000, not properly forming part of the con- tribution of the people-we have as a result the sum of S261, ,223, 1S1. This sum of money was the popular dona- ton for insurance purposes i'll the United States in 1867, exclusive of con- tributions to miscellaneous companies and to assessment societies. During the same year the total disbursements of 623 companies were $224, 1S3, ,025, a sum nearly thirty seven millions less than the people gave them. The meaning of this computation is that during the year 1887, which was not an exceptional year, the people themselves paid every dollar of expenses incurred, every dollar of dividends distributed, and every dollar of losses borne by these 623 con- panies; and over and above all this con- tributed some $37 ,000,000 advance pre- mium on next years insurance. During 1887 the capital on these 623 insurance companies was not used it remained intact and unimpaired.
 "Clearly in the light of the facts, the people in 1887 insured themselves. The premiums paid by them constitute es- sentially public fund contributed for insurance purposes. The companies were merely conduits through which the contributions of the people went to such of their number as suffered losses which were to be indemnifed. The compan- ies were merely agents of the people, and their trustees, charged with the function and duty of promptly. col lecting, safely keeping and equitably distributing public indemnity fund to loss-sutferers."
 Then, traversing the subject, from the consideration of the function of in- surance capital, showing by the way that the 623 insurance companies under inspection which exist theoretically as competitive agencies, are practically one gigantic, cooperative machine-a trust, almost-the writer shows the ad- vantage of public insurance. He says:
 Tt is not alone in cheapness that public insurance excels private. The distribution of benefits is wider and the amount of individual insurance is greater under the former system than under the latter. In Germany fire in- surance averages over $500 per capita of population. In the United States life insurance is S45, and fire insurance averages about $200 per head. This is not as it should be. Nothing so greatly contributes to the moral dignity and character of individuals, to their con- tentment and industry, and to the tion of property among the citizens of the State, and the establishment of re- liable guarantees of its security against loss or destruction. That such guaran- tees may be afforded to all, every indi- vidual should be the beneficiary of suitable insurance against loss of life or of property. It is not in the interest of the republic that the death of its bread winners shall leave its widows and or phans without means of subsistence. dependent upon niggardly charity, and, with all the handicaps of poverty, compelled to struggle for an existence easily to be earned in comfort if means be placed at the disposal of the needy. Nor is it for the public interest that
 fire shall sweep away the resources of the worker, and leave him to begin anew without capital and lay the foun-
 datlOns of fortune. Insurance involves considerations of public welfare, operat- | ing to remove it from the narrow, selfish basis of private contract, incl dental to a scheme of profit making, to the broad domain of national philan- thropy, It should be reorganized and made a function of the federal govern ment-the only depostary power in this country adequate or competent to the task of performing so vast a work. !"