Thrift is so excellent a thing--is so much praised by moralists, so much
commended by advisers of the people, and is of so much value to the poor
who practise it--that it is strange to see it retarded by the caprices
of those who take credit and receive it, for promoting the necessary
virtues. Insurance societies continue to recommend themselves by
praising prudence and forethought which provides for the future.
Everybody knows that those who do not live within their income live upon
others who trust them. Those who spend all their income forget that if
others did as they do, there would be universal indigence. Insurance
companies are supposed to provide inducements to thrift, whereas they
put wanton obstacles in its way.
He who takes out a policy on his life finds it a condition that if
he commits suicide his policy will be forfeited--the assumption of
insurance offices being that if a man insures his life he intends to cut
his throat. Can this be true? What warrant of experience is there for
this expectation? Is not the natural, the instinctive, the universal
love of life security sufficient against self-slaughter? If life be
threatened, do not the most thoughtless persons make desperate effort to
preserve it? Is it necessary for insurance societies to come forward
to supplement incentives of nature? Is not the fact that a man is
provident-minded enough to think of insuring his life, proof enough that
his object is to live?
Answers to a series of questions are demanded from an insurer, which
average persons do not possess the knowledge to answer with exactitude;
yet failure in any fact or detail renders the policy void, although a
person has paid premiums upon it for thirty or forty years.
Elaborate legal statements which few can understand are attached to a
policy which intimidates those who see them, from wishing to incur
such unfathomable obligation. A few plain words in plain type would be
sufficient for the guidance of the insured and the protection of the
company. The uncertainty comes from permitting questions of popular
interest to be stated by a member of the legal profession. If the terms
of eternal salvation had been drawn up by a lawyer, not a single soul
would be saveable, and the judgment day would be involved in everlasting
litigation.
An office known to me had judges among its directors, from which it was
inferred by the insured that the office was straight. The holder of a
policy in it, making a will, his solicitor on inquiry found that the
office did not admit his birth. They had received premiums for forty
years, still reserving this point for possible dispute after the
policy-holder was dead, never informing him of it. When the insurance
was effected, they saw the holder of it and could judge his age to a
year. They saw the certificate of his birth, but gave him no assurance
that they admitted it and it had to be presented again.
In another case within my knowledge, the owner of a policy obtained a
loan upon it, from a well-known lawyer in the City of London, who gave
the office, as is usual, notice of it. When the loan was repaid he again
wrote to the office saying he had executed a deed of release of his
claim on the policy. That the office was not satisfied with this
assurance was never communicated to the policyholder, and when many
years later, the lawyer who advanced the loan was dead, and his son who
succeeded him was dead, it transpired that the office did not believe
the assurances they had received. They admitted having received the
letter by the loan maker, but required to see the deeds relating to
the advance and release and repayment of the loan; and they gave the
policyholder to understand that he had better keep those deeds, as
his executors might be required to produce them at his death. It was a
miracle they were not destroyed. As the office had been legally notified
that the claim on the policy had ceased, it was never imagined that
deeds which did not relate to the office could be required by it. Under
this intimidation the deeds have now been kept. They are fifty years
old. This Scotland Yard practice of treating an insurer as a thief,
detracts from the fascination of thrift.
Another instance was that of a policy-holder who applied to the office
for a loan, for which 1 per cent, more interest was demanded than his
banker asked, and a rise of 1 per cent, in case of delay in paying
the interest, and a charge was to be made for the office lawyer
investigating the validity of their own policy, upon which the office
had received premiums for forty-seven years.
Directors, like the Doge of Venice, should have a lion's mouth open, of
which they have the key, when they might hear of things done in their
name, not conducive to the extension of thrift.
No wonder thrift goes limping along, from walking in the jagged pathway
which leads to some insurance office.
There are, as I know, offices straightforward and courteous, who foster
thrift by making it pleasant. Yet, as one who has often advocated
thrift, I think it useful to record my astonishment at the official
impediments to its popularity, which I have encountered. This is one
reason why Thrift, the most self-respecting of all the goddesses that
should be swift-footed, goes limping along.