The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-08
LIFTING FIGURES
In the Annual Statement of the Metro-
 pOiitan Life.

In the Annual Statement of the Metro-
 pOiitan Life.
 The yearly compilation of statistics published by the Metropolitan Life h. surance Company is never dry reading. l A summary of that Company's busi- ness for the year 1905, just Issued, tab ulates astounding figures in the concise manner approved by accountants, and following the custom of former years, supplements them with a clear and lu- l cid analysis for the benefit of people who are not accountants.
 | Few persons are sufficiently familiar 1 with great financial operations to grasp immediately the full significance of a balance sheet in which totals and grand totals ane expressed in hundrers of millions, but the purpose of a Life Insurance statement is doubtless to inform and enlighten it's multitude of policy Holders, and this purpose the | Metropolitan management accomplishes with signal success. Following closely 1 upon "a period of agitation in the life | insurance field such a statement is timely and specially interesting. l After placing before us a comprehen- | siNe statement of the Company's gen. eral condition and presenting a series of comparative items, the Metropolitan | reminds us again that the number of | it's policy-holders (now increased to more than eight and half milliom equals the combined population of our eight largest cities. In other words, if the Company's policies now in force, were all placed in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, St., Louis, Cleve- land, Cincinnati and Milwaukee, every man woman and child In these commu- mites would possess one.
 [ Men now living remember when the whole United States could hardly have supplied so vast number of insurab!e persons. Even at this day there are twenty-four states and Territories whose combined population does not equal the number of people carrying insurance in this one great company
 We are informed that nineteen thous- and persons were in the Company's service at the end of 1905. If one adult bread-winner represents five individ- uals in the total population, we must conclude that nearly a hundred thous- and persons draw subsistence from this institution-not in insurance benefits, but in direct payment for service to the Company.
 This army of nineteen thousand em- ployees evidently includes no drones. During the year just closed 1t handled a daily average of one and a half mill lion dollars in new business alone. The Company issued on the average nearly seven thousand new policies every bus mess day during the same twelve months.
 A single item which Illustrates graph ically the real meaning and purpose of all this tremendous business is that re- lating to insurance claims paid during the year. These amounted to more than $150OO,OOO. This means that some one received from the Metropolitan Life in benefits one hundred and six dollars every minute of every business day of eight hours thfoughout the year.
 Again, the uncertainty of life and health, and the universal need of life insurance are most impressively em- phasized in the statement that 15,14S policies paid within the year 1905 had been in force less than twelve months; and that 4,326 of these policies were paid in less than three months from the time they were issued
 The Metropolitan Life began the year 1906 with assets of more than one hun- dred and fifty million dollars, showing an increase of more than twenty-three hmillion dollars over the preceding K twelve months. This evidence of ample ana increasing strength is most sat [ isfactory thing for policy-holders to contemplate, and it is "a further cause for satisfaction that the largest years business in the Companys history was transacted at a lower ratio of expense than has ever been reached in previous years.
 The Company directs particular att l tention to the fact that it does not is- sue Tontine, or deferred dividend policies, nor any form of contract which fails to specify in exact terms what the insured is to pay in premiums and what he is to receive in benefits. That the simplicity of it's contract agreements is a popular feature will not be questioned in the light of facts above noted.
 Many items in the Company's sum- mary have not been touched upon for lack of space. but the document itself will be widely circulated, and ones time can hardly be utilized to better purpose than in the careful and refiec- tive reading of its entire contents from