By Sarah Martin
The attack on child insurance, if not adequately answered, threatened the very life of industrial insurance. Weekly Premium business was for the family; and unless the youngsters who formed so large a part of the family were included, the basic principle of this type of coverage was defeated. This result was abundantly evident from the experience of the Prudential of London, the expansion of which had been radically hindered by a temporary ban on child insurance.
In 1889 the Pennsylvania Legislature introduced a bill to prohibit insurance on children. The idea spread to New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and to Canada. For six long years legislative inquiries into Industrial insurance continued their challenge. The most serious of these attacks was that of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1895. Charles Coolidge Read was spokesman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other organizations supporting the bill for the abolition of insurance on children. Sensational newspaper headlines inflamed public sentiment with stories of starvation, extreme poverty, and suffering alleged to result from industrial life insurance.
When Mr. Fiske offered to answer the accusations through the columns of the newspapers, they refused to accept his statements except as paid advertisements. To put the facts before the public, his statement was printed at regular advertising rates. Next Mr. Fiske spoke in the chambers of many State Legislatures. With the tact and eloquence which had characterized him as a trial lawyer, he called attention to the flimsiness of the accusations, showed that even their few isolated cases when investigated had proved to be false. He successfully challenged his opponents to present one authenticated instance of the terrible effects they charged. His simple weapon was fact. He knew that ignorance and prejudice would be thrust aside by the power of truth. And it was.
In connection with the hearings, Mr. Fiske outlined the accomplishments and the benefits of industrial insurance and discussed the misconceptions that had grown up around it. He emphasized that a business which had been established for 40 years in England and which in two decades in the United States had resulted in the writing of nearly 7,000,000 low cost life insurance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er4uFwT0xvc) policies by the three leading companies must certainly meet a fundamental need. He proved that industrial life insurance was a real necessity to wage earners.
His review of the situation brought about a change in public sentiment. He cited previous investigations of Industrial insurance here and abroad. Pennsylvania had had a legislative inquiry in 1889, and after hearings were held, threw out the bill attacking industrial insurance. The movement in Ohio brought the same result. New York State had con¬ducted an investigation in 1890, and the Legislative Com¬mittees hearings convinced the man who introduced the bill that he had made a mistake, and the Committee then killed it. Mr. Fiske quoted the action of the province of Ontario, Canada, in which the bill to prohibit infantile insurance was not enacted into law. Connecticut, Illinois, and Tennessee all had had the same experience.
After weeks of the sharpest interrogation, the Massachusetts committee shelved the bill. Everywhere the inquiries that threatened Industrial insurance came to an end. At these hearings Mr. Dryden, of the Prudential, and Mr. Rhodes, of the John Hancock, gave valuable testimony, but it was Mr. Fiske who carried the main burden for the defense, and the signal victory was his.
Although the absurd charges that Industrial insurance led to crime and poverty were definitely and finally answered, there remained the hard core of truth in certain serious defects in the conduct of this type of insurance. It was true that the lapse rate was high and that the provisions of the policy were far from liberal. Mr. Fiske saw these as well as any of its sharpest critics, but he was also convinced of the essential good which industrial insurance was doing. He firmly believed that the weak spots in the Industrial business could, with time, be removed.
Sarah Martin is a freelance marketing writer based out of San Diego, CA. She specializes in life insurance and the history of low cost life insurance. For a free no medical exam term life insurance quote, please visit http://www.equote.com/.
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