ABSTRACT
The New York papers inform us of the Bankruptcy of a Life Insurance Company.1 A case of this sort is suited perhaps to present in a stronger light than any other the enormous evil of the failure of a monied institution, in which the public have been invited to place their property for security. There is something horrible in the very idea of the failure of an insurance company – a company established for the express purpose of giving security to the property of others, and deriving its income from the engagements it makes to afford this security. But the failure of a Life Insurance is perhaps more wicked than any other, because the losses it occasions are irremediable. The usual purpose of a Life insurance, is to provide from the savings of a scanty income, where the subsistence of a family depends on the life and exertions of an individual, a small capital for the relief of the family, in case of the death of the individual. By the failure of the company, this sacred provision of course is cut off. A life insurance company also invites persons of small property, to give that little to the company, on condition of paying to the proprietors a stipulated sum annually, as long as they live. Annuities of this sort are purchased for the purpose of securing a provision for life. On the failure of such a company, the only provision secured by its annuitants, is a lodging in the alms-house.238
