On
the other hand, no better evidence is needed of the importance of
establishing a uniform and demonstrably sound basis, than the fact that it
is common for companies to refute one another's claims to superior
economy, and totally confuse the public, by opposing ratios found in one
way by ratios found in another--that one of two companies which appears
the most economical according to one test being apparently the least so
according to another.
The economy of the expense of any transaction, or work, can only be
intelligently judged by the value of the _result_. This truth is too well
recognized to need illustration, and it only needs to be called to mind,
to perceive both the error of ratios of expense based on premium, which is
not the result but the _raw material_, so to speak, of insurance
transactions; and what, on the contrary, the true basis is.
It is thus clear that in insurance the economy of expense must be judged,
not by comparison with the premiums paid, but by comparison specifically
with the resulting advantages in fact secured by such payments. Now these
are of two kinds: which may be called the _insurance advantage_ and the
_investment advantage_.
(1) Each death claim paid is an insurance advantage, though it is so only
to the extent of the excess of the amount of the policy which has become a
claim over its premium reserve, or value, for the latter being the balance
(with interest) of the policy holder's own premium money, could have been
left or secured to his representatives without the intervention of the
policy and company.
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