CHEAP INSURANCE FOR U.S. FIGHTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 65, 16 March 1918, Page 13

CHEAP INSURANCE FOR U.S. FIGHTERS.

£1,000 POLICY FOR £8 A YEAR. The United States is»traditionally generous to her soldiers and sailors. To the end of June, 1916, she has paid out to the participants in her wars or to their dependents the prodigious total of £1,010,926,145. ' The vast financial roll of honour covers the War of the Revolution, the war with Britain in ISI2, the Indian campaigns of the nineteenth century, the war with Mexico, the Civil War, the war with - Spain, and the succeeding Philippine. insurrection, and pensions paid to time-expired or incapacitated men of the peace establishment of the Army and Navy.

Americans contemplate with pride, not darni; the fact that TJncle Sam's pension roll of a thousand million pounds will be swelled enormously by the war in which his sons are now engaged. Yet even with that certain prospect before it, the United States Government has introduced a scheme of life insurance lor its fighting men and women ■without parallel in the annals even of that openhanded country-

Pensions there will be on the usual generous scale. The halt and the blind will be cared for as they always have been. But in order that neither they their "people" may have to eke out a bare existence on pension money the United States is helping American eoldiers and sailors to insure their lives. The scheme is supervised by the new "'Bureau of War-Risk Insurance." Enlisted' men and women are invited and urged, but not required, to avail themselves, of its extraordinarily attractive facilities. A " standard policy" of £1,000 is offered, and the premiums on such a policy for various ages between 15 and 65 are as follows:—

Monthly premium payments, -which are introduced to entail the minimum of hardship on the insured, vary slightly between the ages above enumerated. A soldier, sailor, or nurse aged 21, 22 01 23—no distinction is made between officers and men—can obtain £1,000 of insurance at the rate of, roundly, £8 a year. A man or woman of 40 will pay a fraction under £10. Far-seeing and sagacious Uncle Sam does not intend that the capital sum on the death of a fighting man or woman shall be turned over outright to the ineured's beneficiary. It is to be essentially an addition to the pension, and will be distributed over a period of 20 years in 240 monthly payments of £5 15/- This sum, when fully paid, will be the equivalent of the sum insured, on the basis of interest at 3 J per cent per annum.

ige. Monthly Rate. £ s. d. 13 0 12 10 22 0 13 0 25 0 13 2J ;7 0 13 7} 30 0 13 OJ 33 0 14 7i ■10 0 16 2J 45 O -IS 5 50 1 2 5 g> 1 10 2} 60 2 4 2} 63 3 7 0"