Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-03-02
INDUSTRIAL LIFE INSURANCE
Instructive Conclusions of nm Inves-
tiEatinR Committee In
Massachusetts.

A spcciaf COMMITTEES Of the Massachu-
sets legislature, appointed to investigate
the subject of life Insurance, has after
six months labor made "a report. one
feature OF this document, that relating
to Industrial insurance" so called, or
the insurance of the lives OF working
men and their families for small sums,
the premiums being made payable in
small weekly installments. The recon-
mendstion OF the committee is that an
attempt shall be made TO substitute for
this enormously costly method a system
under which the issue OF life policies for
small sums may be made part Of the
business Of savings banks. These inst
tutions are already, II Is claimed, so
equipped and Differed that they could
manage an insurance department at very
little additional cost, and with enormous
advantages to the policy holders as COM
pared with existing methods. In the
hands OF such men as constitute the
boards OF trustees of savings banks un-
der the Massachusetts, system-serving
without pay and with the sole purpose
Of protecting the interests OF depostors
and making their deposits yield the larg-
est possible returns consistent with
safe investments-the interests of policy
holders, not OF stock holders, holders
and agents. would be the first consider
alton.
How workingmen are being Heeced UNI
der the present system is shown by some
statistics gathered by the committee The
sums paid by workingmen In Massachu-
sets in premiums for industrial life in
surance, during fifteen years, aggregate
S61, 294,SS7. The amount received back in
death benefits, endowments or surrender
values aggregates only $2l,s19,0oe. The
insurance reserve arising from these pre-
miums, still held by the companies, does
not exceed s9.sSs,0o0. 1t is thus seen that,
In addition TO interest on invested funds,
about half of the workingm ems payments
have been absorbed in expenses and fat
dividends to stock holders. What these
last have been is shown by the statement
that the annual dividends OF one company
for fifteen years nave been e per cent
on the paid-in capital, and the company
| has, besides, accumulated for its stock
holders a surplus Of more than twenty
| eight times the amount of said capital.
Another company pays to it's stock holders
more than 219 per cent annually upon
/ its paid-in capital. Surely II is argued,
some means should be found of checking
the absorption Of such enormous sums in
expenses and profits, and Of saving them
| for the men who are trying to safeguard
the future Of their families. And the
savings banks-where the weekly pre-
/ mlums can be paid lover the counter"
instead Of 20 high salaried collectors who
go from house to house, where the closest
| economies are habitually observed in
management and where no dividends
would be paid out of insurance money
except to the policy holders themselves
| is above all others adapted to supplying
practicable substitute.
! pitiable feature Of the present system
| is the number of lapsed policies Few pol
icies last more than three years. In 1901
the number OF lapses in the two compa'
MES named aggregated $2,oO5,SS9 Another
! company wrote during the year 108 ~
policies. There were on its books at tn,
beginning OF the year 1887. Yet at tbs
end of the year only 63,49 survived The
absolute, irretrievable less to the work
ingmen the disbursement that ATTENDED
all those lapses, is something appalling.
The proposal TO authorize savings banks
to take up the suggested new line o.
benefcent work is one which may wei
commend itself to the consideration o.
other legislatures besides that of Massa
chusetts in states whose savings bank
are run on the mutual PLAN as in Massa
chusetts, or in the case of mutual saving
banks in states where there are stock a
we'll as mutual savings banks as in Min
nesOta No peril to savings funds is in
volved. THE tables Of mortality on which
life insurance is based make II safe
when in honest hands, as the acceptance
OF deposits and the guarantee Of interes
thereon There would apparently be moth
ing to lose and much to gain for the PEG
pie in the development OF the new idea
ST Paul Pioneer Press