The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-26

Soc,Uoo, OOz
Here again the only item needing ex-
fifteen years on lapsed and surrendered
policies. These amounted TO S0,937, 316; the
amount $40, Si7 ,25S-or about 50 per cent
was returned to policy holders in pald-up
insurance, cash., and otherwise. We're
ours Tontine business, the whole $ll,
O7,047 and all the surplus accumulated by
ii would have gone into the pool for the
lucky ones to diyide-or so much as was
not eaten up by the expenses of Racing.
Similar exhibits by the many Tontine
or investment life Insurance companies
would be of remarkable interest.
Life Insurance SpecuIdtiOn-A Turn
in the Tide.
over twenty years ago certain New York
companies found themselves losing bust
ness very rapidly on account of very high
expenses and very small dividends. The
enormous number Of resulting lapses
threatened their extinction; but these were
seized upon as the happy basis of a plan
to convert life insurance into scheme for
making money out of the many who should
die or lapse their policies, for the benefit
of the few who should live and keep pay
ing premiums through certain period of
years. The reserves on lapsed policies
which with us go to buy paid-up insurance
for the family-and the unpaid dividends
of both those who died and lapsed, were to
be put into a Tontine pool, to be divided
among those who We're lucky enough to
live and keep paying. The gamble was as
to who the lucky ones should be.
They figured out enormous probable pro-
fits from the enormous losses individual
policy holders were to suffer- and the "Es-
Inmates" of these were powerfully attract
i've. Rich men took the policies in certain
confidence that they could beat the game
poorer men took them in imitation of rich
er men, and trusting luck to escape con-
sequences-the FORGETTING of their dividends
and reserves for the rich men to divide.
Plain life insurance has no glitter; but
here was a new, up-to-date thing that
sparkled. The POOL was drawn upon for
commissions to agents that were simply
staggering, and for rebates to new insur-
ers which became a principal means of
competition. The scheme swept the field
\ like a prairie fire. The business of these
companies took on a startling growth, and
new business, as measure of the popu-
larity of the new scheme, was insisted upon
as the real criterion of success. The relia-
bility of the Estimates could not be
tested until the day of settlement came at
the end of the Tontine or Postponed divi-
dend period, and that was many years off.
There were but two ways of meeting the
scheme on which, and the commission and
rebates by which, business was being
captured in such enormous quantities. One
was to fall in with the scheme, and offer
the same speculation with the same sort
of estimates, and pay the same prices for
business, and justify ones self on the
ground that it was Selling people what
they wanted" The other way was to point
out to those whose families needed pro-
lection, and all the protection they could
get, that this was a pure gamble with that
protection; that if the scheme succeeded
LOT the lucky lew II IluSL DC at the cost
of such conhscation of the reserves and
dividends of the many as was a crime
against those thereby stripped of the pro-
lection they needed; that "the people
wanted it" only because they were made
to believe that it was something else than
what it was; that the expense at which
the scheme was being worked precluded
the possibility of realizing the estimated"
profits, and that. insurance being simply
the distribution of losses, and premiums
being simply contributions to losses, it
was impossible to make 1t a profitable
Investment" to any one except by robbing
some one else for his benefit.
The Connecticut Mutual chose the latter
course. 1t has steadily and continually ex-
posed the true character of the schemes
exploited in the name of life insurance; it
has pleaded for pure life insurance to
those whose families could not afford to
have their protection gambged with; it has
tried to teach the truth; TO show people
what their true want Is; to make the cost
of protection as small as possible; it has
been content to see many of its agents
hired away, to be kept from getting new
ones by demoralizing commissions, and to
do new business by the tens of millions
where its speculative rivals-and they