ch
they pay, while patrons of the latter are placing their hopes upon a
rope of sand. We do not hesitate to assert that more money has been
actually lost to the people by the collapse of a single level-premium
life company that we might name than by all the failures combined that
have ever occurred in assessment companies in this country; because, in
assessment companies, for the most part, a fair equivalent is rendered
from year to year, while in the former large over-payments are required
upon the promise of future returns. There have been in the United States
some eight hundred level-premium life companies, only about fifty of
which are now in existence. It is unnecessary to recall the disastrous
ending of such companies as the "Continental" and the "Knickerbocker."
It is well known that the former was at one time receiving not far from
half a million of dollars annually in premiums through its Boston agency
alone, and that the latter, in the midst of seeming prosperity,
collapsed so suddenly that millions of dollars of supposed assets
disappeared beyond recovery.

The history of the "Charter Oak," with its more than ten millions of
assets at one time, its subsequent compromise with its policy-holders at
sixty-five cents on the dollar, and its now possible passage into the
hands of a receiver,--that functionary at the tail end of a
life-insurance company that has so often been the "bourne" whence few
dollars have ever returned to the pockets of the unfortunate
policy-holder,--is too well known to require rehearsing here. Yet the
assertion is brazenly made that level-premium companies alone give
insurance that insures; that there is no safety in any other form of
insurance, and that assessment insurance, disbursing its millions to the
families of our land, is but a temporary craze that will soon pass away.

It is a question that may well be asked: What is the explanation of
results so deplorable in level-premium insurance?

That they occur is too well known to admit of question.

That a very large proportion of those who patronize these companies
become dissatisfied, not to say disgusted, with their practical
workings, there is abundant evidence to prove.

That level-premium insurance does not meet the requirements of the
people is shown by the fact that there are only about 600,000
policy-holders in these institutions in a population of about
60,000,000. While lack of confidence undoubtedly deters some from
pat