The Portland daily press., 1893-09-19
RISKS TAKEN ON LIFE.
Insurance May Now Be Secured in
Many Queer Forms.

For by Many Schemes.
President Eliot OF Harvard recently
suggested practical scheme by which
parents might insure a college education
for their sons and daughters. 1t was
proposed that the parent should pay to
some reliable insurance company a Ger
tain sum annually. beginning with the
third year CT the childas age, the COM
pany guaranteeing to pay the child. be-
ginning with his eighteenth year. the
sum of $500 per annum for the next four
years. To tho mind Of the laymsn there
was an attractive novelty about this
scheme, although it is in fact only q
new way Of proposing very attractive
form of contract offered long ago by life
Insurance companies under the title Of
deferred annuities."
The fact that college educations may
be insured suggests the constant multi
plication of all kinds of assurances.
Fifty years ago this country knew very
little about insurance Of any kind save
the simple contracts of insurance against
death and fire. Today there are various
forms Of accident insurance, marine in
surance, insurance against billiards.,
hurricanes and foods, live stock insur-
ance, plate glass insurance, steam boiler
insurance, insurance against burglars.
mail matter insurance and, queerly.
enough, insurance against damage from
automatic sprinlzlers, which are them
selves part Of insurance against loss
by fire.
Nearly all Of these schemes are the
outgrowth OF Yankee ingenuity. save in
the case of insurance against live stock,
which, according to Paul du Chaillu, did
1ourishing business in Iceland 600
years ago. Many of the other forms of
insurance owe their origin to special
calanlities. against the recurrence of
which shrewd business men proposed to
take chances. Insurance against foods,
for example, originated with the Cone
maughs disaster in the spring of 1889. and
insurance against cyclones began just
after the town Of Grinnel, Ia. was de-
vastated in 1883.
One Of the most interesting forms of
which the companies make their profits
on broken bones, cracked skulls. taran-
lula and snake bites, sprained muscles
and scalded bodies. A man in Syracuse
recently broke his arm, and 90 days
later, having failed to take precautions,
he died of pneumonia. The court held
that he died Of an accident, and the in
surance company in which he held an &C
cident policy had to pay. Another man,
who lived in Morristown, N. j., got up
in the night to close window. While
walking across the room in the dark he
struck his shin ON a chair. Inhamma-
ton developed, followed by grave COM
plications, and the man died after hav
ing had his leg amputated. The insur-
ance company contested. that he had
neglected to take proper precautions in
not lighting candle before crossing the
room, but the court held against this
theory, and the company paid the loss.
The court of appeals Of this state re-
Gently affirmed a ruling of the supreme
court in the case of M. M. Paul. who was
suffocated in his sleeping room by es-
Gaping gas. Both courts held that he
died from an accident. These rulings
tend to show that there is no little diff
ference of opinion as to what constitutes
an accident.
In England the courts hold views as
to the meaning of the word accident"
that differ widely from the interpreter
tions of the American courts. The court
of appeals in England, for example, re-
Gently decided case of farmer who
was killed by bull in crossing one of
his fields. It was the opinion of the
court that the man incurred an obvious
risk in crossing the field in the presence
of the bull; that any man taking reason
able precautions would not have incur
red such a risk, and that his death was
not due to an accident, as implied by
that term in his policy.
Another English case was that of Cole
versus Accident Insurance company.
Cole went to his barn one night to get
some medicine which he kept there. A
gust of wind blew out his candle. and in
the dark he took from the shelf a bottle
of corrosive sublimate, of which he took
large dose. The court held that this
was not case requiring the accident
company to pay any loss, though it is
( hard to see why it was not an accident
pure and simple.
Life insurance, while apparently very
simple undertaking per Sc, is sometimes
employed in abstruse and complicated
business methods. Some of the heirs OF
the late /. v. Williamson, who died in
Philadelphia In March, 1889. have re-
Gently resorted to novel contract in life
insurance for the purpose Of realizing
on an estate that, according to the terms
of the will would not have been theirs
until 1899. Mr.. Williamson left an es-
tate valued at $l1, 163.62a, of which &c.
boo, 900 was placed liz trust to accumu-
hate for 10 years, when 1t was to be dis
tributed equally among So relatives. If
they survived. Six Of these relatives de-
sired, however, to realize at once on their
inheritance, and it was accordingly pro-
posed to crafty their desire by an issue
of 300. 600 bonds for each person.