The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-04

7 not only exposes its whole insurance | business to the sudden paying out ot | the reserves necessary to it's integrity I but, if it regards it's premiums as de l posits" or as "instaIment payments | for the purchase of bonds, 1t has to 1 charge these deposits or instalments with not only their annual contribution l to death losses, but with commissions l to agents and other expenses which
 take out of them every year large per
 centage on each $100 deposited or paid l in, varying according to the company s | economy or want of it. And this stands l in contrast with deposits in savings 1 banks without any commissions at all and but slight comparative cost of man. | agement, and with real investments i'll
 mortgages, bonds or good stocks, with 1 no expense at all.
 Present Competition. Obviously one cannot afford to em-
 ploy a life insurance company with It's
 necessarily high expense rate to act as
 his savings bank, nor to regard it's poll
 cies, however phrased, as real invest
 ment bonds, nor to have his life lnsur-
 ance on which his family depends eH-
 posed to the constant menace ot the
 wholesale withdrawal by others of the
 necessary reserves as if they were real ly mere deposits in bank.
 Yet it is precisely along these lines that business is most sought to-day,
 and the companies seeking it most ca
 gerly are those that have the heaviest
 expense rate; and the business is se-
 cured in part at least through mlsap- prehension. The expense is concealed from the policy holder for the present by postponing dividends for long peri ods of years, with the expectation also that meantime many forfeitures will occur for the benefit of those who out stay the period; the ''5 per cent, bond sells through concealment of it's real cost and of the fact that for the same money one pays for StO,000 bond he could have instead s13OOO cash down; and the companies turn themselves practically into savings banks, trusting luck that the run may never come which would destroy them as insurance companies.
 Lesson of Experience
 And yet one of the most striking fea- lures of the experience of the conapa- nies competing by these methods for great growth for twenty-five years and more is the fact that notwithstanding the enormous lapses and forfeitures which have occurred and upon which they have depended for unusual profits to those who outllved and outstayed the deferred dividend period, the expense has been so great that the actual divi- dends have not even approximated the estimates upon which the business was secured.
 The Sound Position.
 It is because there is but just the one thing that life insurance can do that no other institution can do, and because, at best, it's necessary cost is relatively high, and because any other financial operation can be better and more cheaply done by some other institution organized for it's own specific purpose, and because life insurance company cannot do anything that other institu- tions specifically undertake except at a and excessive cost, and yet more because another thing which other institutions undertake is, in specific aim, method and incident, in conflict with and more or less destruc- tive of the proper aims, methods and results of life insurance and it's admin istration; it is because of these things the Connecticut Mutt has refused to be led aside by the stress of competi- tion, to deck out life insurance in the garb of something else, has adhered to the true and particular aim of life in- surance and its necessary method, and has thereby accomplished it's intended result of perfect protection at low cost in an incomparable degree; it is be- cause of these things that it still so bases and frames and administers it's contracts as to give to it's beneficiaries sure protection at least cost and at an nual cost to the payer of the premiums, I according to his own proper risk from whatever cause, protecting him against fraud by others and the cost of it. and not taking anything from him by any device for the benefit of some one else
 It is in it's business so conceived, so based and so administered, that your has achieved that great strength, steady prosperity, and that steady and great volume of operation that have enabled it to serve it's mem- bers to their unique advantage; and it is in holding to the same sure cond- tions and in the full fruition of their that it confidently hopes to render a future service of equal be- neficence to dependent families, and of equal value to those whose duty it is to protect them.
 The Operations of the Year
 In it's main results and in the condi- 5ions affecting the future with which it closes, the year 1901 was satisfactory >ne The details are given so fully else where that we shall here deal only with he general features of the years expe- 'ience.
 The new business written was larger n amount than in the previous year; he number of lapses and other termi- nations was considerably smaller; the increase in the amount of business in orce was consequently greater, with a increase in premium in- . .ome and in assets,
 Mortality.
 Owing to the age of the company and he remarkably small proportion of apses and surrenders and the conse- tuent persistence of it's business, it's isks have come to have a greater av- rage age than those of any other com- any; it has also proportionately arger resources in the reserves held on