Equitable Life Assurance Society

“ This was in 1773, and the intelligent reader will necessarily be reminded of the period when life annuities were paid for without regard to youth or age, and when a life insurance office commenced business, and received equal premiums from the young and from the old, from the healthy and the sick. But people were beginning to think. In 1777 fault was found with the charges of the Equitable, and the following scale proposed:—
In 1779 a proposal was made for an universal assurance of lives, by means of a tax to be levied by Government. ”

“ On the principle of autonomous administration by the insured, a unitary and comprehensive social insurance system serves to maintain the health and strength of the working population, to protect motherhood, and to provide against the economic consequences of old age, disability, unemployment and other vicissitudes of life. ”

“ In Germany alone there were, in 1860, twenty-four Life Assurance Companies, in which about 260,000 persons were assured to the amount of upwards of forty millions sterling. The oldest and most successful of these institutions have adopted my Table of the Equitable experience, and I am informed that it agrees very well with the results of their own experience up to about the fifty-seventh year. After this the deaths are rather more frequent than those of the Equitable. ”

“ We must exclude the very old and the very young, so far as earning-power is concerned, or even regard them as of negative value—but where shall we draw the line?
The clue to the solution seems to be given in the practice of insurance companies, based on the principle that whilst the individual dies the race remains, and not merely the race, but the classes and divisions of the race remain to a great extent uniform. Life insurance is mainly concerned with age and mortality, but a similar principle may be applied to the occupations of the people. ”

“ All persons are entitled to Social Security as a nonprofit public service to guarantee health and protection in contingencies of maternity, fatherhood, illness, invalidity, catastrophic illness, disability, special needs, occupational risks, loss of employment, unemployment, old age, widowhood, loss of parents, housing, burdens deriving from family life, and any other social welfare circumstances. ”

“ An unprecedented number of civil cases are stalled, affecting the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, from the family seeking life insurance proceeds, to the senior citizen trying to collect Social Security benefits, to the small business protecting its right to compete. ”

“ I'm talking about real and lasting emancipation, because the success of welfare should be judged by how many of its recipients become independent of welfare. Further, after seeing how devastating illness can destroy the financial security of the family, I am directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Otis Bowen, to report to me by year end with recommendations on how the private sector and government can work together to address the problems of affordable insurance for those whose life savings would otherwise be threatened when catastrophic illness strikes. ”

“ The legislation I have recommended for workers in private industry should be accompanied by a parallel effort for the welfare of Government employees. We have accomplished much in this field, including a contributory life insurance program; equitable pay increases and a fringe benefits program, covering many needed personnel policy changes, from improved premium pay to a meaningful incentive award program. ”

“ Life-Insurance Agents Necessary Theoretically, no life-insurance company should employ an agency force. He who has dependents and no income except the product of his own toil is as morally bound to carry life-insurance as he is to furnish his children food and shelter. Obviously, he should not be hounded into performing this simple duty. However, that theory seldom works. Experience has demonstrated that men do not insure of their own free will. They must be clubbed into it. The company that employs no agents does no business. The old Equitable of London pays enormous "bonuses" or "dividends" ”

“ When you are in company note carefully all manifestly interested in the subject, and call upon them the succeeding day. Follow up every marriage and every funeral. What better wedding present than a life-insurance policy? What more persuasive argument than the death of a man uninsured? ”

“ This is, without doubt, a just conception of the nature of life insurance; but, while the companies agree with Mr. Wright in dividing the premiums into "insurance value" and "reserve," they disagree with him as to the ownership of the "reserve," half of which they insist on retaining for themselves, in case of surrender. The Mutual Life, of New York, retains from fifty to seventy-five per cent, of the "reserve," in settling for surrendered policies, and the Equitable from fifty to sixty per cent., and this is done on all policies alike, without respect to age or class. ”

“ If, as is probable, the principle of social insurance is ultimately to prevail, and if a certain amount of the regular income of every labourer is to be retained and laid by to form a provision for his old age, which his employer or the state will increase in certain proportions, we believe that it would be equitable to increase the provision laid by for the father of a family in a larger ratio than the provision laid by for a celibate. ”

“ I was recently waited upon by an important man.
"Lawson, what are you doing in life insurance?" he asked.
"Giving facts about the life-insurance branch of a 'System' which is foully plundering the people," I answered.
"What are you trying to do?"
"Educate the millions of life-insurance policy-holders to their present peril; after they are educated, arouse them to quick, radical action." ”

“ One of the subjects which for some time has commanded the public attention is that of Life Assurance: the means by which a man may, through a moderate annual expenditure, make provision for his family when death shall have deprived them of his protection. ”

“ Do you not know that the greatest institution in this country to-day is life insurance, and that if you disturb the confidence of the people in life insurance their families will be deprived of the greatest source of income at a time when most in need of it? ”

“ ARTICLE 161 For the purpose of conserving health and the ability to work, of protecting motherhood, and of guarding against the economic effects of age, invalidity and the vicissitudes of life, the Commonwealth will adopt a comprehensive system of insurance, in the management of which the insured shall predominate. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the men who work for a living at trades and in the various branches of employment where skilled labor is not demanded, do not carry life insurance as a general thing, except in benevolent or fraternal societies of which they may be members, and this is the main reason why the “straight” life insurance companies, as they are called, did not suffer more than they did. ”

“ Through the Social Security Act and related legislation, Congress has created a comprehensive national insurance system that provides benefits for retired workers, disabled workers, unemployed workers, and their families. ”

“ As a consequence, many families kept moving from flat to flat, spending three months in each, and thus living without paying any rent at all. Similarly, many ingenious persons have obtained life-insurance all but "free of cost." This year, for example, you take a $10,000 policy in the Equitable, at 75 or 80 or 90 per cent discount. Instead of paying your second premium you take next year a $10,000 policy in the Mutual—also at a big discount. ”

“ The measures proposed were for the insurance of the workmen against accident, sickness, old age, and inability to work by arrangements under state control. "The finding of the right ways and means for this state protection of the working man is a difficult task, but also one of the highest that concern every society standing on the ethical foundations of the Christian national life." ”

“ It was soothing to know that if I should be taken away in my earliest youth my equally young wife and two little babies would not be left penniless. I verily believe that an adequate life insurance prolongs a person's life, because it removes the worry about the future of the wife and children. ”

“ Those claims were put prominently forward to benefit themselves; and life assurance companies cannot greatly benefit their promoters without benefiting others. The constant advertisements, the names of their directors, the statement of their terms, the peculiarity of their constitution, pressed upon general attention, the public mind gradually became possessed with the idea that life insurances were for every class, and business increased. ”

“ Every widow and orphan in the United States who receives the benefit of a life- insurance policy owes a blessing to Elizur Wright, who was the first to establish life insurance in America on a strong foundation, and whose reports on that subject, made during his long term as Insurance Commissioner for Massachusetts, have formed a sort of constitution by which the policy of all life-insurance companies is still guided. ”

“ Of all fiduciary institutions, life insurance should be the most sacred. Its chief function is to care for the widow, the orphan, and the helpless. The millions of revenue paid annually into the life-insurance companies of this country represent the blood and tears and sweat of millions of Americans who thus provide for the care of their dear ones for the time when death shall have put an end to their own income-earning abilities. The administrator of a trust so solemn and exalted should devote himself to its safeguarding as a priest dedicates himself to the service of his [472] Maker. ”

“ He regarded life-insurance simply as a family protection; on the part of the insured, he declared again and again, it was a purely unselfish act. No policy-holder must himself expect to benefit from his policy. ”

“ While, therefore, the society may not consist of lives as carefully selected as the policy-holders of an insurance company, yet they constitute a fair average of the healthy male adults of the Caucasian race. And any possible inferiority to life-insurance subjects in the matter of physical health will be more than balanced by the advantages resulting from the comparatively high standard of morals necessary to membership in a benevolent and moral organization. ”

“ Social Security for everyone to relieve the hazards of unemployment, sickness, old age, family circumstances, disability, catastrophies of nature, and technological change, and to allow retirement with sufficient lifetime income for living under conditions of human dignity during older age. ”

“ The Government has still other opportunities--to help raise the standard of living of our citizens. These opportunities lie in the fields of social security, health, education, housing, and civil rights.
The present coverage of the social security laws is altogether inadequate; the benefit payments are too low. One-third of our workers are not covered. Those who receive old-age and survivors insurance benefits receive an average payment of only $25 a month. Many others who cannot work because they are physically disabled are left to the mercy of charity. ”

“ This being the case, we may expect life insurance companies in the future to become active in life conservation. Already there are probably fifteen million policy holders in the United States insured in companies which are trying to do something for their health—through medical examinations, instruction in hygiene, utilization of visiting nurses, participation in civic health movements and otherwise. To save human life merely to save money is sordid enough, but it is well to harness commercial motives, when possible, in the service of humanity. ”

“ Time was when anybody with money could be a banker, but now it is conceded to require special gifts and a special training. I place life insurance right up in the front rank of the professions, for it is semi-philanthropic. We are not in it for our health, of course, but, if we are conscientious and earnest, we may reasonably flatter ourselves that we are doing a vast amount of good in line with our work. The life insurance solicitor has been the butt of many jokes. ”

“ Whatever is good in life insurance for other races is good for our race; whatever in life insurance benefits other races will benefit our race. In 296business as in education, whatever is good for a white man is good for a black man. I would, therefore, urge every boy and girl to join a life insurance company, and where your mothers and fathers are not insured I would urge you to do your utmost to persuade them to join at once. ”

“ Assumption of risk, contributory negligence, and the fellow servant doctrine are fast being abrogated by statute. A system of social insurance is being instituted that is distributing the unmerited hardships due to accidents, sickness, old age and unemployment in a more equitable manner. ”

“ The law shall establish the forms of participation of the persons concerned in Social Security and in the activities of those public bodies whose operation directly affects quality of life or general welfare. ”

“ At present more than 600,000 lives are insured in the United States alone; and the usefulness of the institution is only beginning to be properly appreciated. In view of this fact, and of the general interest that cooperative enterprises are attracting just now, it may be well to point out that life insurance must be reckoned among the grandest and most successful efforts ever attempted in that direction. It has, moreover, a century's experience to attest the strictly scientific principles upon which it rests. ”

“ On the basis of obligatory social security, workers shall be provided with health protection and other rights against illness, reduced working ability or loss of working ability, and old age. In the event of the death of the insured person, health protection and rights, as well as other rights arising from social security, shall be provided the members of the family of the worker, subject to conditions determined by law. Provision also shall be made in law determining security for the health protection and other rights arising from social security for other citizens. ”