FRATERNAL INSURANCE IN AMERICA 243 



do anything to check this movemonl. From a business point 

 of view the afloi)tion of level rates seems most expedionl. 

 Furthermore, since fraternal societies avowedly find their 

 constituencies among persons of limited financial resources, 

 and whose earning capacity sometimes decreases rapidly after 

 middle life has been reached, the introduction of limited pay- 

 ment certificates or policies is worth consideration. Not only 

 does the natural plan with its markedly rising cost of insurance 

 in the higher ages levy a severe tax on the earnings of the small 

 policy holder, but the level premiums even may become too 

 burdensome. Fraternal societies strive to furnish, among 

 other benefits, pure whole life insurance. When this involves 

 lifelong annual or other periodical payments, the policy holder 

 can see no end except death, to the number of his contribu- 

 tions. This objection holds against all whole life, imlimited 

 payments policies; and consequently all insurance organiza- 

 tions must meet this proposition. It seems desirable that a 

 person's heaviest contributions should fall within the most 

 productive years of his life. Both the experience of fraternal 

 societies with increasing assessments and the composition of 

 their membership point to the desirability of the introduc- 

 tion of some limited payment premium systems. Mortality 

 tables can be elaborated with mathematical precision, and 

 fraternal as well as commercial insurance ultimately rests upon 

 the same insurance principles. Two important points of 

 superiority claimed for fraternal insurance are better selection 

 and lower expense rates. The former, it is claimed, is in part 

 due to the double selection coincident with the lodge system, 

 under which the medical examination of the applicant is 

 supplemented by the test of meeting the approval of the mem- 

 bership of the lodge. Points which might escape detection b}^ 

 the medical examhier may be kno^^^l to individual lodge mem- 

 bers, and this would be sufficient to reject the risk. The 

 latter — the expense item — is made much of. By confining 

 themselves to pure insurance, i. e., insurance free from invest- 

 ment and speculative elements, fraternal societies claim that 

 they can conduct their business with much greater economj^ 

 Fraternal officers point ^^dth pride to an estimated average 

 expense of $1.03 for ever}^ $1,000 of insurance in force among 



