“Will the widow be likely to get it if he is dead?”
“In my opinion she will have a mighty slim chance of collecting anything, even if she can prove that he is actually deceased. From what I know of the President of the Widows’ and Orphans’ Mutual Life Insurance Company, I believe he will fight the claim through all the courts. That is his rule. Nearly all the companies do it.”
“What! even if it is a clear case for the policy-holder?”
“Of course! That is the regular thing. They’ll worry a widow so that she will be glad to compromise on half the claim, and by the time she has paid her lawyers most of that is gone.”
“That seems hard!”
“Yes; that is one of the reasons why I quit. Take the case of Lemuel A. Gerlach, for example. You remember it?”
“No.”
“Well, sir, I did my best to persuade that man to insure. He didn’t want to; but I harried him into it. I waited on him at his office; I disturbed him at his meals; I lay in wait for him when he came home from the club; I followed him to the sea-shore in summer; when he went yachting I pursued him with a steam-tug; when he was sick I got the apothecary to enclose our circulars with his medicine; I sat next to him in church for four consecutive Sundays, and slipped mortality tables into his prayer-book; I rode with him in the same carriage when he went to funerals, and lectured him all the way out to the cemetery upon the uncertainty of human life. Finally, he succumbed. I knew he would. It was only a question of time. I took him down to the office; the company’s surgeon examined him, and said he was the healthiest man he ever saw—not a flaw in him anywhere. So he paid his premium and got his policy. Two months later he died. When Mrs. Gerlach called to get her money, the President threatened to have her put out of the office because she denied that Gerlach’s liver was torpid when he took out his policy.”
“Did they pay, finally?”
“Pay! not a dollar! The widow sued to recover, and the company put the surgeon and eight miscellaneous doctors on the stand to prove that Gerlach for years had been a complete physical wreck, with more diseases than most people ever heard of; and they undertook to show that Gerlach had devoted the latter part of his life to organizing a scheme for foisting himself upon the company for the purpose of swindling it. That was five years ago. The case is pending in the courts yet, and the widow has already spent twenty per cent. more than the face of the policy.”