The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-15

are striving to outdo if possible or at
 least equal this one. Its expense ac-
 count Is 2S per cent of its income and
 has been as high as that for many years. Its rivals are not behind In lib-
 erality of plan or expenditure. It is useless to look for honest, legitimate
 competition-an examination of real
 merit-under swh conditions. The
 business is solicited upon cunningly- de-
 vised plans, upon deceptive estimates
 of profitable investment" which have
 never been fulfilled, and Is usually se- cured by heavy rebate on the premi-
 um. Whoever pays one of these com l panies any large part of his first year 8 ! premium is probably being discrimina-
 ted against by the agent.
 | Under these conditions THE CON- 1 NECTICUT MUTUAL still offers plain
 life insurance, as protection to the fam fly, and tries to make it attractive sim
 ply, by making it perfect to that end
 and by keeping its cost down to the
 lowest possible point. It tries to real I ize the ideal results of legitimate bus mess; and it seeks to attract to it's
 membership only those who want only
 such results, and do not want a specu- | lation on their family's protection.
 And it does not try to make one man
 think he is getting his insurance cheap | CT than any other man, or at the ex-
 pense of any one else, or at less than
 it's true cost. 4.1
 INVESTMENT" INSURANCE. :.
 But plain life insurance has to contest
 the field with so-calied "investment inl
 surance." As if anything like invest
 ment" could come out of companies
 that take from fifteen to twenty-five
 cents for expenses out of every dollar
 that comes in. The lack of foundation
 is concealed from ordinary eyes by an
 arrangement to postpone all dividends
 for ten or twenty years-the longer the
 time the higher the commission to the agent and the rebate to the applicant.
 Whoever dies leaves behind him all the surplus his premiums have earned above the proper cost of carrying his Insurance while he lived, and those who lapse forfeit their surplus and also all or large part of the reserves accumti- lated from their premiums, in the hope that the forfeitures will be so many as to fill up the hole made by great ex- penses and furnish great dividends to those who live through the term and keep up their policies. The immortality and cruelty of setting men to speculate on what ought to be absolutely sacred to the protection of their own and other mems families is obvious But the ''es- tfv,1o arO tempted multitude, but only to disap- pointment.
 To illustrate: One of the great pio- neera in this sort of speculative life in- surance is settling this year, 1895, the dividend on Tontine policies issued twenty years ago. It's then estimate of that dividend on policy of $10 ,000, an- nual life premiums, age ,fqpty,. was $9,- 556; 1t is paying only $3,794; just S9.70 per. cent. of. it's "estimate.". Scores of millions of dollars of reserves and ac- cumulated surplus on ,lapsed policies that ought to have gone to give some remnant of protection to the families l of those who lapsed or to enable them l to keep up their policies, have been for feited to the Tontine pool; but theSgreat | expenses incident to doing a speculative | business all over the world, have eaten up the profits" and left but that pitt | full outcome.
 Mark now how the dividend-produo- l ing power of this speculation is steadi- l ly waning. Thescompany referred to | began issuing these twenty-year Ton tines in 1871, and therefore first paid a twenty-year Tontine dividend in 1891. ! On policies like the one just cited that | was estimated at S9,556; here | are the dividends paid; on policies is- sued in 1871 the dividend in 1891 was S4, ,976, or 52.07 per cent. of the estimate; | on policies issued in 1872 the dividend | paid in 1892 was $4, 4,456, or 46.63 per cent. of the estimate; on policies issued in 1873 the dividend paid in 1893 was $4,- 366, or 4567 per cent. of the estimate; on policies issued in 1874 the dividend paid In 1894 was $4,106. or 42.96 per cent of the estimate; on policies issued in 1875 the dividend paid in 1895 is $3,794, or 3970 per cent. of the estimate. Per aaps the company itself furnishes the pest comment on this history in it's pre- face to it's book of Estimates used by agents: While the results of the fu- .ure must necessarily depend on the ex- of the future, figures based on past experience furnish the pest attainable data upon which to judge of the management of the Socie- y and the value of its Tontine assur- lnce"
 When these policies have received heir one Tontine dividend they fall pack into the annual dividend class. I And the annual dividends are slight
 As the investment" quality dies out ts form is attractively varied to con ,eal the want of substance and to cre- II Lte the illusion of giving much for lit- le. The policies are made to have an appearance of liberality as to condi-lI { ions which is false in part and for the est part destructive of honest mutual ty and of public morality.
 The legitimate business of life insu- ance company is the payment of death , osses out of the premiums paid by it's ,, members, Aside from making it's con- racts absolutely just and secure, the reat merit in administration is to take s little money as possible from its members; to do the business as cheaply S possible; to make their annual pay lents as small as possible. To assume 3 convert the payment of losses of any ort into an investment operation is an1 ,