644 LINDSAY— SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' INSURANCE. 



employed in active service under the War and Navy departments. 

 Its purpose is twofold — first, to restore a man's insurability which 

 was either taken away from him or considerably impaired the mo- 

 ment he entered the military or naval service; secondly, to afford 

 our fighting forces protection for themselves and their dependents 

 additional to and greater than is provided by the compensation 

 provisions of this act, without medical examination and without cost 

 for solicitation, advertising or administrative expenses, — the usual 

 overhead charges with which commercial insurance premiums are 

 loaded. The government offers at peace-rate cost this insurance 

 and whatever the war risk, due to military service, may be, the 

 government assumes that, pays it and presents it to every man in its 

 military or naval forces who elects to take the insurance. How well 

 the men have appreciated this ofifer is shown by the fact that prob- 

 ably 95 per cent, of those eligible to take the insurance have done 

 so and the amounts they have elected to take have averaged well over 

 80 per cent, of the maximum allowed. The predictions of prac- 

 tically ail persons experienced in the insurance business have been 

 utterly confounded by this result obtained without the services of 

 personal solicitors. Both Congress and the bureau were assured 

 that we need not expect more than half of the total number of 

 men eligible to take any insurance at all and of those that did, prob- 

 ably most of them would take small amounts so that the average 

 would not exceed 20 to 25 per cent, of the maximum allowed. 



The insurance then is term insurance at peace rates with 

 premiums payable in monthly installments which brings it well 

 within the reach of the poorest paid soldier, who, even ^fter making 

 a compulsory allotment of $15 per month in order to secure a 

 family allowance for his wife and children or a voluntary allotment 

 of the same amount for other relatives dependent upon him in case 

 he has no wife or children, for an additional sum of approximately 

 $6.50 per month may secure $10,000 of insurance (the maximum he 

 is allowed to take) and still have $8.50 per month for spending 

 money, or with minor additions or the extra pay allowed in foreign 

 service, he may have approximately $10 per month for his own use, 

 which in the opinion of the commanding officers of our military and 

 naval forces, is more than enough to meet every legitimate need. 



