ABSTRACT
A question of some interest and importance, in Life Insurance practice, has arisen in connexion with the recent expedition to Egypt. 1 Policy holders who are officers in the Army are subject, under their policy conditions, to a reasonable extra charge, during active service. This extra premium is not specified in the tables or policies, and officers ordered abroad are, therefore, very much in the hands of the Companies, with little time for negociation or debate. Go they must; and equally peremptory is the necessity to keep alive their insurances. The extra rate in general use is five guineas per cent. per annum, which must be, on an average, nearly equal to two years’ extra premium, to be paid down; – a heavy charge, but we are not suggesting that it is, in ordinary cases, excessive. It about covers the risk of one man in nineteen being killed in the year, including all contingencies, and would be a fair rate in such a case as that of the Franco-German war. 2 It is compatible, as we understand, with the statistics of that struggle. At the commencement, however, all wars are, in theory, equally pregnant with disaster. But there are some special points for consideration in the present instance. In the first place, the employment of the Household troops 3 on foreign service was quite exceptional. Most of the officers in these regiments are men of family, and when insured carry large amounts, ten or twenty thousand pounds, and even more, principally in connexion with settlements and other financial matters; so that large sums have had to be paid to the life offices, and, in all these cases, for the whole year, whereas in the smaller insurances, among linesmen, many are by / quarterly or half-yearly payments, and the extra premium would be payable by similar instalments. Now the actual term of active service, as is well known, on this expedition has been very short, not averaging, probably, more than two months, and the casualties insignificant. Officers look for a return in respect of the unused – and, by the Companies, unearned – portion of the extra premium. They surrender, in fact, the expensive licence to be killed, and expect a fair surrender value therefor. There can be little doubt as to the spirit in which this question will be met by the high-minded and enlightened men of business who direct the affairs of our great Insurance institutions. Without going so far as to assert that there is nothing to be said against this demand, from the actuary’s 228point of view, we venture to think that there is in it so little real ground for discussion, that the question may be at once relegated to the safe neutral territory of simple expediency; and that this expediency can have but one form and expression; viz., a prompt and cheerful admission of the warriors’ claims, and their equally prompt adjustment and liquidation.
