El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-11-28

NE of the questions regarding
life insurance which seems TO
~ be very strong in the' pubic
mind just now is: VIII the present Eu-
ropean war affect the strength and SOL
vencv of our American life insurance
companies those which nave uoAe
foreign business2 The answer IS no
positively no " said J. j. TyndaIl' uIs
trict manager of the Union Ce nII a
Life Insurance company and a HIeliiO0i
of the Rotary club. A..
amount of foreign life Insurance. III
force, compared with the Whoie' Is sO
small as to be almost negligible; me
classes from which the soldiers IN the
European armies have chleIly Deen
drawn are not the classes whose mem
bers have insured extensively IN amer
lean life insurance companies. FurIn-
ermore. practically all our foreign life
insurance contracts have anticipated
this war and contain provisions Tor
extra premium. Davments should the in
sured go to war. These extra premium
payments are sufficient to compensate
the companies for the extra FISK as
sumed. Those companies whlcn nave
done so have also maintained separate
foreign reserve deposits, and these de-
posits are ample to pay foreign losses
as they occur.
THE viewpoint of the general pub
lie toward the life insurance business
has undergone n marked chanSe IN re-
cent years. Take the question OF TAX
alton, for instance. Practically every
state in the union taxes the payments
made by policyhOlderS. The amount OF
these taxes vary from rev cents On
the hundred in some states, TO 80
hundred in others; depending on the
laws which have been enacted from
time to time This is an indirect tax
and is hidden from public view because
the company pays it first and then
charges it to the account of the policy
holder. Thus the public realIy pays
PenaIize Thrift.
at used to be common falling of
| our legislators, whenever they sought
| a method of raising more money, to
say: Let's tax the life insurance
companies again. They've got plenty
/ of money And for years our people
| heard this smiled, sat still and said:
! Go ahead. That's all right as long as
we don't have to pay Only recently
/ have we awakened to the realization
/ that. in taxing life insurance companies
! and funds, we are taxing ourselves, not
only indirectly, but directly. Why
| should the citizen who, through life in
| surance, guards his family against be-
| coming public charges, pay more taxes
to the state than his neighbor who is
| equally well to do, earns as large an
/ income, but does not protect his family
1 through life insurance.
No Longer Mystery.
''The legal reserve life insurance
/ business has reached plane where il
is no longer a mystery 1t operates
| upon known mathematical law and is
| standardized to a remarkable degree
Thus the well managed and firmly es-
! tablished companies of today know il
1 advance what their death losses for the
year will amount to. Most of then
have a considerably lower death loss
ratio than they estimate, which means
a saving for the policy holder and
/ reduction in the cost of his insurance
! Nearly all-of the companies which per
init their pOlicyholders to share in the
savings and excess interest earnings
participating companies, distribute
these savings among their policy hold.