ABSTRACT
ATTEMPTS have been made to sell life insurance without an agency organization – “over the counter” – notably in England; by occasional American companies who have endeavored, through advertising and circulars, to do what might be called a “mail order business,” and in Massachusetts by permitting savings banks to sell life insurance. The almost negligible amount of business done through these methods and the expense, direct or indirect, at which it has been secured, show these experiments to be practical failures. Branch offices at important centers are at least as necessary in life insurance as in other large business ventures. In addition to the meager business thus secured, resulting ultimately in a high expense and death ratio, the inconvenience to policyholders of being obliged to transact the important and sometimes complicated matters involved in the history of a life insurance contract by mail is very unsatisfactory. Every life insurance company, therefore, has an important executive officer in charge of its agencies or what might be termed its “Sales Department,” for, as with any other good article, even the best life insurance will not sell itself. This is peculiarly true where it is but natural to procrastinate about a provision that needs must be made when one is in good health and does not need it, and that can be most advantageously made when young and the contingency provided against probably, and at least apparently, very remote.
