Alcohol and Life Assurance.

White Ribbon, Volume 5, Issue 53, 1 November 1899, Page 10

Alcohol and Life Assurance.

In an article contributed by William Bingham to The Temperance Record be writes:—

The value of abstinence principles has been recognised by Accident Insurance Companies, for we find the Accident, Ocean, Scottish Employers, Scottish Temperance, and the Lancashire and Yorkshire each giving a reduction o f 10 per cent, on the premium to those who abstain, while several others give smaller reductions. In conversation with the Secretary of one of the above offices I was told :—“ We do not find the advantage to be so much in the greater immunity from accidents enjoyed by teetotallers as in their more rapid recovery when stricken down by accident,” an indication that the blood of the abstainer is purer, and thus effects the repair more speedily. The treatment accorded by life offices to those engaged in the liquor traffic is very suggestive. I wrote about eighteen months ago to upwards of sixty of the principal offices, asking them bow they dealt with proposals on publicans’ lives. The appended extract from the Financial Times , October Bth. 1897, gives the result : “ flow poor Bung is regarded when he knocks at the door of an insurance office is shown by the following summary :

8 won’t have him at any price. 1 adds seven years to his age. 1 adds 30 per cent, to the premium. 15 charge up according to demerits. 33 let bin: oft tor an extra of £1 per cent. 1 makes it a guinea. 3 need 255. 2 declare that £2 is necessary, and 1 insists on a couple ot guineas. “On the face of this wonderful unanimity on the genera question that the life is a shockingly bad one come two offices ready to take the risk for half-a-sovereign. “ Whatever that special class of business may be worth, these two offices deserve to get it, and we fancy the rest will not raise any objection.” The manager of the Prudential, in his letter, said

“ It may interest you to know that until about a year ago the extra premium was £\ is, but it was increased in consequence of the very unfavourable mortality which we had for some time experienced from this class of lives.”

This testimony is very valuable, as there is no other office with so extensive

an experience, and for the first twentyfive years of their existence they took these risks at ordinary rates—increasing the premium nearly twenty-five years ago by 15s. extra per assured, afterwards to 21s. a few years later, and then to £2, the present amount.

Very truly did John Bright once declare : “ There is no mistake about it, the men who abstain from intoxicating drink have an immense advantage, both physically and morally, over the rest of the community.”

If an array of fact and testimony in favour of drinking could be collected such as is here presented against it, there can be no doubt that it would be almost universally claimed that the case against teetotalism was complete, and that such a craze should be abandoned. Ought not, then, the apologists for alcohol to recognise the strength of the abstainers’ position and “ come over and help us.”