OBJECTIONS TO INSURANCE.
The objection which this individual made against insuring his life, was a very natural one, and is an objection made by many people, though in a different form. The insurance companies, some of them at least, meet this objection with a plan by which a man arriving at a certain age without dying, can draw the money that would come to his heirs in case he died before the specified age was attained. They have devised other plans to meet the objections of all classes of people, and it is safe to say, that the system of life insurance is about as near perfection as it is possible to bring it. It is a question whether, in many cases, the companies do not reap a much larger advantage than is their just due. It is noticeable that the companies, as a general thing, pay enormous salaries to their officers, erect costly buildings, pay heavy dividends, and have a good time generally. The conclusion is natural that the rates of insurance are altogether too high, and the advantages are much greater for the companies than for their patrons.
It is possible, sometimes, for dishonest men to defraud the insurance companies, though it is not always easy. The companies are generally on the safe side; they require the most positive proof of the death of a person whose life has been insured, and they throw a great many obstacles in the way of the collection of the amount of the insurance. I have known them to demand one certificate after another, and compel the person who was endeavoring to collect the insurance money to make ten or twelve visits to the office before meeting his just demands. Very often, after the death of an insured person, questions are raised which were never before mentioned. The premiums may have been paid for years, and the officers of the company claim to make a discovery that relieves them from all responsibility. In some cases their action in this respect is just, but in many others it is about as unjust as anything that can well be conceived. It would seem proper that where a person has been accepted for insurance, and the premiums on the amount of money called for have been regularly paid and received without objection, no objection should be raised after the person’s death.
NEAT FRAUD ON A COMPANY.
Some interesting stories are told of the way in which insurance companies are sometimes defrauded. One was told to me by the secretary of a prominent company in New York, which indicates great ingenuity on the part of the swindler.
“One day,” said the secretary, “a man called at our office, and said he wished to effect an insurance of ten thousand dollars on his life, and was ready to submit himself for immediate examination.
“The physician of the company was called in, and made a careful examination of this man, whom I will call Johnson. Johnson was pronounced a good subject. All sorts of questions were asked, and he answered all of them satisfactorily. He was closely inspected. His limbs were pinched, and his chest was thumped in the orthodox way, but no defect could be discovered. To all appearances he was good for three-score and ten, and possibly more. He gave us references, stated that he was a clerk in an up-town house, and his statement was fully verified. I called upon his employer, inquired about his clerk, and was told that his character was of the best, and that he was a very industrious and strictly temperate young man. We were satisfied, and insured his life for the full amount.
“In a little while he made a request to be permitted to travel west, and of course we granted it. His parents lived in a small town in Connecticut. He had married in New York, and had been married for three or four years. Occasionally he took his wife on a brief visit to his old home. He went west soon after his application, and we lost sight of him. His wife accompanied him, and he announced his intention of finding employment and settling in one of the western cities.
“Six or eight months after his departure, his wife telegraphed to her friends in the east that her husband was very ill with pneumonia. Two days later she telegraphed that he was dead, and that she would bring the body to Connecticut for burial.