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

It is our custom to address you each
year at the time of our annual Superintend-
ents' Convention Usually this is held about
the middle of January, and the topic OF the
Bulletin is naturally the Annual State
ment OF the Company. This year the Super
intendents met in convention tthe middle of
December, and obviously the record of the
year Is not made up, and it would be pre-
mature to set forth the progress OF the
Company in its business and finances. We
shall have something very pleasant to say
to you before we close about what you have
accomplished; but our immediate object is
to tell you about about our plans for next
year.
INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT.
You have known from numerous ad'
dresses, both oral and written, what our
ambition has been for years in the Indus
trial part of our business. You will bear
us witness that our treatment of the policy
holders has been one of progressive lib
erality ever since the present administra-
tion of the Company began. The very first
year of It's incumbency Paid-up policies
heretofore unknown to Industrial insurance
in this country-were announced; and ev-
cry year since then something has been
done for Industrial policy-holders beyond
any promise made in the policies Bule-
tin No. 1876 set forth these concessions and
bounties up to its date and since then the
iSuCCSSSlV6 years nave De6n Hdrkeu Dy pro-
gressive gifts and benefits offered to policy
holders; and this year the Company has
been disbursing the enormous sum of
about two millions of dollars in voluntary
dhiaends upon participating Industrial
policies; bringing the total amount of un
promised dividends in twelve years to about
ten millions of dollars to Industrial policy
holders in the form Of dividends on premi
ums, dividends on death claims and in
creases of benefits upon existing policies.
We have been enabled to accomplish this
work all these years by steady improve
ments in business methods, by steady ex-
tensions of business territory, by steady
additions to insurance in force, by watch
fulness In writing and taking care of bust
ness resulting in decreasing death rate,
decreasing lapse rate and decreasing eX-
pense rate. These improvements we have
announced to you from year to year; but
perhaps from this very fact-their gradual
steady rogressiveness--you have failed to
grasp their full significance Yet year by
year we have told you our aimAto reduce
expenses, to Improve the death rate, to bet
ter the policies, to distribute the surplus,
so, that each year a larger proportionate
amount could be returned to policy-holders
and smaller proportionate amount used
in expenses
Within the last few years our disburse-
ments for death claims have been so contin-
income and our Improvements in ratio of
expenses shown so steady an Improvement,
that we thought the time had come to make
a scientific resurvey, SO to speak, OF the
technical features OF the business, We
have made Investigations into our mortality
and drawn off into various periods our ex-
perience of mortality. The mortality tables
upon which our present tables are founded
were taken from the experience Of 1890-1S94
A comparison of this with tables taken from
the experience 81 other periods has shown a
steady improvement In mortality. In the
case of children the result is really startling
Take, for instance, age two next birthday.
Our present table showns 49.3 deaths per
thousand; table 1896-1905 shows but SO g ;
age three the figures are respectively SO
and 243; age five l6 and 98; age ten SIS
and 3.S, and this improvement runs through
the Infantile table. AS to adults there is
also marked improvement
These facts convince us that the time
has come to construct new tables of bene-
fits founded upon our experience of 1896
1905; and we are confirmed in our eonyic-
ton by the fact that a table drawn from
the years 1991-l905 shows a better expert
ence than that of the full decade And it
seems to us just to base these tables upon
the experience of white lives; and to give
benefit based upon the Improvement which
we feel certain is permanent. How great
n "A N N N N "A n n N N n ma n N