The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-10
INSURANCE MEN
 UNITE FAMILIES LONG ESTRANGED
investigation of Whereabouts of Lost Policy Holders
 Important Task.

Every life insurance company, says Q writer in the New York Sun, is probably carrying on its books as a liability thousands of dollars repre- senting policies issued on the lives of persons, now deceased, under which no claim has ever been made and un- der which undoubtedly no claim will ever be presented except through in luiries instituted by each company to ascertain the facts. In addition prob ably many companies have in force hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pol ieles on the lives of persons of whose whereabouts they have not the slight est knowledge.
 A life insurance company naturally spends little time in perusing the obituary column in the daily news paper, as it has a reasonable expecta- ton of being speedily, if not gently, notified of the maturity of a policy by the death of the insured. As the organization of the oldest of the great life insurance companies in this country dates only from about 1s4S not until recent years has it be- come apparent that in some cases if the insured were still living he must have drunk of the fountain of youth which Ponce de Leon never succeeded ! in locating. Quite naturally, when the records of the company disclose the fact that a man has reached fhe cen tury mark, thus proving beyond doubt l the DO41GlC anO doNdhldS9 O1 441SNAA AAS against death, the company is put l upon inquiry. Most, if not all, com panies offer to make payment of a policy when the reserve under it equals its face, which under the >a-c- tuaries' table and per cent is at age 100. and under American table and 3 per cent. at age 9S.
 1 Connecticut Mutual Pays.
 The Connecticut Mutual recently paid two policies of this character on the life of resident of New York state. As the insured had reached the age when the reserve equals the face of the policies they were paid him in full during his lifetime. The agent informed us that he died short 1y after-probab1y the shock was too great.
 A life company is usually content to assume that a man is living until he l is proved to be dead, yet there is 8. certain point where such assumption ceases to be virtue, and in order to prove that it is not Intentionally act ing a depository for unclaimed i funds it may be well for it to ascer- tain how many apparently living men according to its records have passed to the great beyond.
 1 I may perhaps be pardoned if from this point I en9eavor to relate some of the salient features of an investiga- ton undertaken a little over three | weeks ago by the company with which | am connected-a search foE Host policyholders''-whi is now nearly or quite concluded, and with highly l gratifying results.s
 | The first steps of the investigation I consisted In making inquiry concerning policies in force upon the lives of per- 1 sons who, if living, had reached the age of 80 years or over and whose ad- | dresses were unknown, and was un- 1 dertaken rather as an experiment to |, plete and general inquiry might be 1 advisable. A considerable number of these persons were found to be still l living, few having reached the age | of 90 or over. In a fair proportion of these eases the insured had deceas-- ed, and upon receipt of satisfactory proofs of death settlement was made.
 How They Did It.
 The results attained in this pre1im- mary inquiry, made it apparent that "a general, careful and systematic inves- ltigaHon should be instituted. Accord ingly a card was prepared for each policyho1der whose address was un- certain or unknown, on which was en- tered such data, chiefly obtained from the original application, ,>as might aid in tracing him.
 After all available data was entered
 on this card printed form letter ap- p1icab1e to all cases was sent to the
 
 if more than one address had been re-
 corded in the past, to the address which promised the best results
 In cases of communications returned
 marked "unclaimed'' or removed" | the postmasters were, as a rule, ex- Iceedingly obIiging in answering inQui- ries, and many policy-holders were
 traced through their assistance.
 If the application disclosed the fact 4 that the insured had served in the ar
 sion, inquiry was made of the pension
 bureau at Washington, D. c. In this
 way considerable number of persons
 were located where other clues had failed.
 Recourse was then had to the friend or physician named in the application
 and this was also a fruitful source of information, and although the friend
 named had perhaps passed away the
 members of his family were often able , to give valuable assistance by fur nishing clues. Occasionally the agent
 or solicitor, if known to be living, was
 appealed to.
 Two or Three Notices. After the investigation was we'll un- : der way it became quite apparent that the task was a larger one than had been anticipated. The difficulties in 5 creased as the work progressed; the . file boxes became crowded and more space had to be provided to hold the
 increasing correspondence, especially 3 that relating to deceased persons. : A surprising fact was the necessity of sending to the insured at the same
 address, after waiting for a reasonable period without reply, two and often
 three notices. In such cases a de- parture was made from the usual
 form letter, and the insured was given
 to understand, in polite language, that
 possibly the former communications
 had not been understood or had been
 rnisconstrued.
 To these letters various sorts of re- :. plies were received; some stated that f they were not aware that the policy f had value. Several complaining g