Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1899-12-15
LIMIT IN LIFE INSURANCE.
In All the Companies of the World .
Man Might Get Perhaps
100000 200.

Several papers have published para
graph to the effect that the prince of
Wales is insured for about 1000, 600,
portion OF the insurance being for the
benefit of creditors, and a much larger
portion in favor of persons neither re-
lated to him nor having any interest
whatever in his living. Prof. A. F. Har-
vey, the insurance actuary, who is
authority on all such matters, considers
the statements ridiculous, and partic-
ularly the one that Prince Albert is in
sured for the benefit of people who have
no 1nSurable interest in him.
up to about 125 years ago the prac-
tice of taking out insurance on the
lives of kings, queens and others in
authority, where there was no possible
insurance interest, obtained to a great
extent" said the professor when his
attention was called to the paragraph
1.-The practice became so general, scan
dalous and vicious that in 1T74 parIia-
ment enacted statute IA Geo. 3, C.
4S), prohibiting absolutely all insur-
ance in which there was no interest
to the beneficiary. in the life of the prin-
clpa1 in the contract, and prohibiting
the payment of money under a policy
actual sum due. This law against
wager or gambling policies was fol-
lowed up in France and Germany and
in most of the states of this country
and has since been rigidIy enforced
everywhere
The amount of life insurance carried
by the prince of Wales has never been
made public, and is probably known to
MI f0rr
ever, that the total is not one-tenth of
the sum named in the paragraph re-
ferred to. The most heavily insured
man in the United States is ex-Post-
master General John Wanamaker, of
Philadelphia, and his insurance
amounts to only s., 600. The word
only applies here because of the com
parison with $4S, 600 600. or, to be more
accurate, S4S,775, GOO, according to the
present market value here of 100000
600. AT a meeting of the National Life
Underwriters, association in Philadel-
phla four years ago Mr.. Wanamaker
stated that one of the first things he
did after becoming of age was to in
sure his life. When Mr. Wanamaller
addressed the association his life in
surance amounted to 1925. 900. and all
but 100000 had been taken after he was
so years of age.
According to an eastern insurance
journal 1.-The amount of life insurance
which can be secured upon a single life
among the United States companies
foots up S2,6OO,OOO.'' The paper gives
a tabulated list of ~ old line companies
and what purports to be the limit of
EACH The figures are correct in the
main, but there are some bad errors in
the list.
Some of the companies insure for
more than the amounts credited to
them, but in every such case the COM
pany reinsures portion of the risk.
The figures in the table represent the
limits without such reinsurance Of
course, there could be no reinsurance
on person that took the limit in every
company. Legal reserve and stipulated
premium companies that are not usually
classed as old liners are omitted from
the table, as also assessment compan-
les, fraternal organizations and several
industrial companies that write very
little, if any, ordinary life insurance.
Accident companies that pay death
claims, but do not write ordinary life
insurance, are likewise omitted. In
Guiding all these, the total life insur-
ance that person could get in the
United States would probably still fall
below $3,OOO,OOO. There are about $50
life insurance companies in the world,
not counting American companies.
Very few of them insure for as much
as $4,000 and the average is not half
that sum, but supposing it were $50, 900,
the total would be only 100000,
which, added to the American total
would still make only about one-fifth
the sum the prince of Wales is report
ed to be insured for.-St. Louis Globe,
Democrat.