The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1906-12-28

this Improvement is, we illustrate
by few, figures comparing the table
upon which our present benefits are
based with table of white lives for the
last ten years. Deaths per thousand: age
two next birthday 49.3 reduced to 34.7; age
three 32 to 22.5; age four 21.5 to 1872; age
five 16 to 9.5 age ten 5.5 to ga; age twen-
ty 105 to II; age thirty 1877 to Ill; age
forty 1913 to 14.3. The other element be-
sides mortality involved in a table of bene-
fits is of course the expense. As you know,
our ratio of expense to premium income has
been falling for some years; this year the
reduction has been phenomenal and will
reach, we think by the end of the year,
three per cent. This alone means a saving
of nearly one and a half millions of dollars!
We shall show a lower ratio of expense for
1906 than has been experienced by any In
dustrial company in the world.
One ether element goes into the con-
struction of tables of benefits; and that is
the maturity of the policies. When we
vinced that the public was enamored of en-
dowments. Our Industrial business has
been issued for ten years, as you know,
mainly upon Endowment tables-Increasing
Life and Endowment policies and Twenty
year Endowments forming a very large pro-
portion in some years over 80 per cent, of
our total business. One disadvantage of
this table has been that it largely increased
the reserve. Our children's Increasing Life
and Endowment policies have been endow-
ments payable after periods of AZ years and
upwards according to age at issue. Com
pared with the Whole Life tables issued by
other companies these have made necessary
the accumulation of an increase of many
millions of dollars in reserve. Unthnking
persons come to the conclusion that this
piles up the wealth of the Company forget
ting that along with the increase of assets
runs the increase of liabilities, and that the
wealth OF company consists in it's surplus;
and completely overlooking the remarkable
fact that we have deliberately kept down
our surplus to about ten per cent of our
assets by annual distributions of the excess
OF surplus earned to the policy-holders who
contributed to 1t. Public opinion has chang
ed and now cares more for death benefits
than endowments. We are in business to
please the public We have a good
deal of evidence that Ordinary Life and
Limited Payment Life contracts are thought
preferable to Endowments. We have re-
solved therefore to discontinue our In
creasing Life and Endowment policies
which were designed to meet the public de-
mand formerly existing, and which were, we
believe, the first tables ever really scientific
ally constructed for Industrial policies. Our
new Industrial policies will therefore be
Whole Life contracts. But we think that
as to these there are signs OF belief on the
part OF the pubic that payment of premi-
ums ought to cease with old age. 1t is hard
for people 10 see what to any mathemati-
clan Is self-evident that in life insurance
the companies are enabled to pay the poll
cies in full on lives of those who die soon
after insurance only by the receipt of pre-
miums from those who live out and beyond
their expectations; and that the apparent
hardship upon those who live long is only
the contribution to the unfortunate which
Is the essential basis of life insurance
However, 1t Is possible of course to make
tables for limited payments, and the
problem is therefore to fix an age that
shall not be so young as to raise the pre-
miums. or (what is the same in Industrial
insurance where the unit is the premium
and not the amount of insurance. to reduce
the benefits undufy; and on the other hand
to fix the age not so old that the benefits
OF the limits OF payment OF premium shall be
lost. We have fixed age rs as the limit of
payment of premiums because at that age
we are enabled to only slightly reduce the
benefits during life and because we have
not received many complaints of the neces
sity or paying premiums up to that age.
And to the occasional complaint that "peo.
pie never live to such old age" we NAV
answer that in 1906 we shall have yolun.
tarlly, as matter of grace, paid about 2. 700
claims as Endowments on policies issued as
Whole Life on persons reaching age so after
paying premiums for 15 years or over.
Constructing a table of benefits upon
these four principles-Whole Life instead
OF Endowments; our recent mortality expe
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