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 pol............