ABSTRACT
I HAVE often thought, and sometimes said, that our ordinary life companies might solve the difficulty of many people in determining when to take out a life policy, and do an excellent stroke of business for themselves, if they would come down from their lofty perches and condescend to do business for the common people. In 1881 I wrote some articles in the old Pall Mall Gazette, discussing the position of life insurance business, and making some animadversions upon the sluggishness and lack of enterprise displayed by most of our English offices. Some of their abuses were also attacked, and I am glad to see that in looking back to those articles no small progress has since been made in various directions. No English company of any standing now cheats clients who may become unable to continue their 37payments through misfortune by refusing to pay to them any surrender value. Delays no longer form the rule in paying policies when they become claims, and in other directions reforms have taken place. But British offices, English and Scotch, are still much too plutocratic in their modes of doing business, and look with scorn upon the humble individual who might only be able to invest £1 or £5 in a policy.
