FRATERNAL INSURANCE IN AMERICA 237 



mutual system. This tabic has tho sanction of able actuaries. 

 Columns 11 and 12 show the probability of dying according to 

 the American experience and National Fraternal congress 

 tables respectively. In these columns one finds the reason 

 for the differences existing between columns 2 and 3, the prob- 

 ability of dying being correspondingly lower in column 12. 

 It will be noticed that the premiums in colunrn 3 are 

 approximately one sixth lower than those in column 2, up 

 to age thirty five; and that for ages above thirty five they are 

 only about one tenth lower. Although the rates of column 

 4 are generally one third below those of the fraternal congress, 

 they show system and careful calculation, as a comparison 

 with columns 2 and 11 and 12 will readily reveal. Columns 

 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are fair examples of that type of fraternal 

 societies which attempt to make the world believe that accept- 

 ed mortality tables are thoroughly bad, and that they can 

 furnish insurance or protection at rates from one half or one 

 third to one fourth of old fine rates. They promise benefits 

 out of all proportion to the contributions made, and sooner or 

 later go into inevitable ruin. Column 10 shows the table of 

 rates prepared by competent actuaries for a society which 

 aims to furnish insurance at the lowest possible cost consistent 

 with safety and efficiency. This society, furthermore, aims to 

 eliminate the investment features from its insurance, and to 

 restrict its business to the furnishing of mere life protection. 

 If the relief work of many fraternal societies may be character- 

 ized as remedial, the insurance of this society may be described 

 as preventive, just as tout me and semi-tontine policies may 

 be termed speculative. Modem life insurance as a whole is 

 primarily preventive; whereas in its beginnings, insurance 

 was chiefly remedial. The transition from the remedial to 

 the preventive form was made possible only by the scientific 

 formulation of accumulated experience, and the transaction 

 of insurance business on the basis of this experience. Ac- 

 cumulated experience eliminated gradually the chance or 

 speculative element which was so prominent in some earlier 

 forms of insurance, such as the maritime or sea loan, in con- 

 nection with which some life underwriting was also done. 

 Although an element of speculation still survives and the in- 



