Arizona republican., 1903-05-12
The Growth of Life Insurance.

Nothing better illustrates the stu pendous scale on which business is conducted in the United States than the statistics of life insurance. Year by year the people place a greater vol tune of their savings in life insurance investments, and even in the dullest years there has always been q steady increase; but the number of policies has increased about two-thirds in four years, since trade revived, and the amount at risk has increased in nearly as high ratio.
 As nearly all the life insurance com panies do business in New York, the report of the insurance superintendent of that state falls but little short of covering the country. Figures com piled by the Spectator give the finan- cial statements for the whole United States, but do not give the number of policies The New York report gives the number of policies in companies doing business in that state, and a comparison between the New York re port anu lIle pAiehNAOil A4A NAA0 -~ASNN
 tor warrants adding 3.3 per cent to the number of policies given in the New York report, which has just appeared, to get tie number of policies in the United States. The number of policies in force at the end of each of three years was as follows:
 ] 1902 ......................- .......4,uo+'otS 1898 ..........-......-..... .Z'4lS'ooO 1892 .........,.... .......... 1,53l ,21 The number of ordinary life policies, then, increased nearly a million in six years. four of which were about as bad in a business way as any the country has known. and in the last four years the number increased 1,664, ,S2S.
 The amount of money represented by the policies at the end of 1902 was SS. .I19, ,21S.793. an increase of three bil- lion dollars in four years, and of a trife more than 50 per cent in ten years. during which time the number of policies has increased 166 per cent. and the amount has a little more than doubled. This shows that much of the increase in the number of policy hold CTS consists of persons of small means who can only afford the smaller amounts. More than four million fau.-
 flies in the United States are protected against the death of the bread winner
 by amounts which average over s. 900.
 But besides this general life insur- ance there was in force at the end of 1902 s1,SO5 164.072 of what are called in dustriaI policies, carried by working people who make weekly payments,
 usually of about ten cents. The num-
 Der of these policies is not given. but
 if their amount average $50 twelve million persons, or families, in addition
 to the four millions just mentioned are
 carrying life insurance that would do q good deal more than pay funeral ex- penses. Many of the holders of indus
 trial policies are members of burial associations, and carry these policies
 in order to provide their families with
 Q little money when they are stricken
 down.
 The increase last year in the number C4 OIuiIdIy lIle lHSuIdHce pOllcleS was
 close to 40O,CCO, and the increase in the
 amount covered was not much less
 than a billion dollars. while the in
 crease in the amount of industrial pol icies was s164, ,O64, 651, and the companies
 have assets of S2,1OO, 138, ,47S, and they
 received in premiums and earnings
 last year a little more than half a bill
 lion dollars.