Springfield Weekly Republican

LIFE INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS.

In view of the appeal to the insurance commissioner to investigate the affairs of the "Unity mutual life insurance association" at Boston, and to prosecute its officers, the whole question of the feasibility of these associations and of their discountenance by law is likely to be discussed. It is well known that experts in life insurance, including our own state commissioner, frown upon associations like those of the Boston and Albany mechanics here and like that proposed for the Baptist ministers of the state, as containing within themselves the sure tendency to insolvency. After a while, says Commissioner Hurlburt, the present members will reach old age, deaths and assessments will become more frequent, new members will not join to bear such burdens, the members will decrease, a dollar a head will produce a smaller and smaller total, and the association will finally dwindle to a few, who will receive when they die a very slender return for all they have paid in.

It is difficult to make men believe this, when their association is steadily increasing in numbers. Here, for instance, is the locomotive engineers' life association, which, at an expense of ¾ per cent, has distributed $2,000 to heirs of deceased members, during the past year. It contains 887 members, each of whom paid, last year, $22. This was less than three-fourths of 1 per cent on a life insurance of over $3,000. This is very flattering at the end of seven years, but will the association hold out to pay so much or even a fair return to every man who is now paying his assessments? That is the question.

But it seems to us it is a purely private question, which every man should have the full liberty of answering for himself, and in which the state should hesitate to interfere, especially in view of the fact that 87 out of 78 regular life insurance companies have closed up their business in this state within ten years, while, for the past year, our five Massachusetts life insurance companies have terminated more policies than they have issued. In view, however, of the uncertainties of the problem, people who feel inspired to raise and set in motion these associations should be very sure that they are not inviting their friends to throw away their money.