INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17750, 29 June 1929, Page 11

INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE

REPLY-TO CRITICISM. : SERVIOE TO WAGE-EARNERS. An insurance agent has handed us **V reply to a criticisin of “shllling-a-week insurance” which appeared in the Undercurrents column of the Waikato Times on June 13. The . statement appears below, but references to insurance concerns by name have been omitted: — It is quite apparent that the •critic has not studied the calling of an industrial life insurance agent at all carefully, or he would haye realised that it warrants and necessitates the service of ‘‘grown men” to no less a degree than any other calling—in fact, bearing in mind the Immense benefit that life insurance confers on mankind, the agent’s work is essentially more a “grown man’s” job than that of many who level criticism at itThe industrial department agent is a collector and custodian of poor people’s savings. As high a standard of integrity is required of him as of a bank teller. He expounds the sound saving principle of insurance, with no element of speculation In It whatever, so why classify his profession of any less Importance than that of a bank official or stock broker? It would appear that the critic is quite favourably disposed to the principle of life insurance generally—it is apparently “industrial insurance" that has aroused his antagonism. How then does he propose to provide life insurance for those people who would be deprived of its benefits if the present mode of weekly payments (made of a compulsory nature by a collecting system) was discarded? Does lie not realise that for many wage-earners their “pay” is fully mortgaged in advance for necessities of life before it is received, and unless the agent calls promptly at a specified time, the "saving" represented in the insurance premium is forever lost in the multiplicity of calls upon the wage-earner’s resources? The sums paid away day by day by industrial offices for death, and matured claims amply illustrate the worth of the system, and no other way has yet been devised to so fully cope with this necessity To hand the responsibility over to the Government would necessitate either: (i) An overburden of taxation if the State attempted to furnish benefits at any cheaper cost to the individual; or (2) the establishment of a State industrial insurance department, which would in turn have to employ "grown men” to collect the contributions from the individuals. And in this latter instance (the establishment of a State industrial insurance) we venture to say that the cost to the individual would be no less than is the. case at present so far as some of the established mutual life offices arc concerned. The industrial department, of this office is conducted absolutely on Ine - mutual principle—there are no shareholders and ail surpluses which arise In .the conduct of the policy-holders’ business (at the

cheapest expense rate possible) are divided annually amongst the policyholders. For 1928 the expense rate (even including taxation and all expenses) was over 8 per cent, less than the figures quoted in the critic s article. Were it not for the cost of the service of collecting the premiums from the policy-holders, the expense rate and general results of the industrial department of this office would be identical with those of the ordinary department. Further, of the total policies issued by the industrial department of this office since its establishment 24 years ago, even Including losses by way of death and matured policies, over 59 per cent- still remain in force; truly an eloquent testimony to the patience, punctuality and service generally rendered to the industrial policy-holders by the “grown men” of whom their field staff is comtposed.