The Press., 1904-02-11
THE CONNECTICUT MUTUAL.

necticut Mutual Life Insurance COM
pany and the report of its president,
Colonel J. l.. Greene, appear else
where to-day. The company during
the past year has increased its prem
ium income, it's interest income, and
it's net assets, has maintained it's phe-
lnomenally low expense rate and has
reduced by $3.50. 600 it's item of real
estate held under foreclosure. 1t
shows assets of $64, 932, 955 and sur
plus, which, according to its own low
scale of figuring, is 81, $50, 600, and,
according to the usual 4 per cent.
reckoning, would be about $3, 600, 600
more. 1t has in force 70, 15O policies
insuring $166, 504, 500.
The assets of the company are in
fine shape, and the stocks and bonds
are all of high class and have all paid
their anticipated return with the sim
gle exception noted, in the case of the
city of Galveston, where the security
is ample and payment will have to be
made. The decline in market values
amounts to about three points on the
$25, 600, 600 or more of quick assets,
but their income producing quality is
fully maintained and they still show
profit of about 81, 600, 000 above cost.
During it's existence the Connecti-
cut Mutual has received from it's pol
icy holders 1927, 347, 887, and it has re-
turned to its policy holders 1927, 118,
|984. or 99.9 per cent. of all that has
been paid in. It still holds $3.50, 600,
900 of their money, which is five to
eight millions above it's liabilities.
The steady fall in the rate of interest
has at last brought the Connecticut
Mutual to reduce somewhat the rate
of dividend to policy holders, which
for the past twenty three years has
been unmatched by any other COM
pany, but in this it is simply doing
what others were forced to do years
earlier. The wise course of President
Greene in voluntarily adopting back
in 1882 the 8 per cent. rate for his
calculations has operated to produce a
much greater surplus and to defer and
lessen the reduction of dividends.
This 8 per cent. basis has been grad
ually adopted by practically all the
life companies in the country, al
though, when Colonel Greene set the
pace about twenty years ago, his
conservatism was frequently criti
cized
The watchword of President Greene's 8
policy is conservatism and in this re-
port, as heretofore, he opens upon the
methods of those companies that seek
business by going outside the legiti-
mate field of life insurance. He pre-
diets that, if the "liberalizing' of
policies goes on, it will not be long
before the companies themselves will
exist from day to day only because
the insured refrain from exercising
the rights granted them. If they can
withdraw all their money at will,
they have it in their power to close
up company at any time, while per-
sistency is one of the essential factors
in life insurance. ...
In contrast with this he says
In the midst of this sort of compe-
tition, which brings an enormous
business but with enormous waste, at
an expense which is as reckless as it
is unnecessary, and which contradicts
every principle and method by which
proper and adequate results as to the
security of contracts, the cost of in
surance, equity between members,
and the integrity of the company it.
self, can be assured, the Connecticut
Mutual holds steadfast to the truth,
which, be it never SO widely or light
ly disregarded, can never be denied,
that the paramount purpose of life
insurance, the one and only peculiar
service it is constructed and fitted to
render, which it alone can render,
and the only one worth its necessary
cost even at minimum, and the one
spring of it's high motive, is to "de-
fend and provide for'' those whose
welfare depends ON the continuance
of ones life and who must suffer in
all their future by it's loss.
Il