INSURANCE-OFFICE REPUDIATION.
TB= is no form of saving which is so profitable for any specific purpose as insurance since it obtains a maximum of amount saved or secured for the specific purpose with a minimum of in- termediate sacrifice. As the advantages of insurance are better 'understood, the practice will probably extend ; and it becomes, therefore, additionally desirable for insurers and the managers of insurance-offices distinctly to understand the grounds upon which the contracts of insurance can be rendered void. Should offices multiply those cases of repudiation which the public has wit- nessed perhaps too often, a more serious check would be put upon insurance than by the heaviest duty that Government could im- pose. On the other hand, it is not desirable that the facilities of insurance should operate as a premium upon speculations like Palmer's. We believe that, as usual, all difficulties in "drawing the line" can be obviated by a simple attention to the essentials of insurance. The case of Traelock versus the Householders and. General Life Insurance Company" ought to be instructive to all parties. In September 1854, a policy of insurance was effected. on the life of Mr. Joddrell, the son and heir of Sir Richard Joddrell of Chilwick Hall, St. Albans. Several other policies were also ef- fected. Mr. Joddrell died in November 1855. Mr. Thomas Truelock, formerly a member of the Stock Exchange, claimed 10001. upon the policy which we have first named ; and the in- surance-company repudiated the claim, on the ground that the re- presentations of the plaintiff as to the value of Mr. Jeddrell's life were fraudulent and false, and that the plaintiff had no interest in the policy. The last plea is extremely wide, and if it were in- tiscrimittathly used it would unquestionably extinguish a very useful class of insurances—useful to private persons, and most profitable to insurance-offices. How often it happens in private life that a man may undertake to pay a debt of honour, to repay an unsecured loan, to make a gift to an intimate friend, to benefit a distant relative, to compensate for some service by a pro- spective service, or in various other ways create an interest in his future condition and, the duration of his life which it would be quite impossible to reduce to a legal definition or a recognizable shape. It is not an unusual practice for creditors to insure the lives of their debtors, particularly where those debtors are persons who have a prospect of obtaining money by profes- sional exertions, of succeeding to it by inheritance, or even of coming into property by will or gift as in the case of a young man who has married into a wealthy family : it is impossible to clefts the innumerable instances in which common pru- dence suggests insurance ; and insurance-offices well know that n large part of their revenue is derived from this very extensive but indefinable class. Let it be understood that a harsh test is to be applied to the " interest " which the claimant has in the life of the insured, and we see that a vast section of insurance business would be extinguished and prohibited for the future. It is as much in the interest of insurance-offices as of the par- ticular claimant in the ease, that by a verdict affirming the claim the Jury set aside this plea.
• The Jury also held that the plea of fraud had not been sus- tained by sufficient proof. We have to learn what " sufficient " proof would be. The case itself was by no means absolute or distinct. Mr. Joddrell had been addicted to habits of great intem- perance; he had either aggravated a natural infirmity or had been rendered insane by the use of stimulants; but he had be- come steadier after his marriage, and although still using too much intoxicating drink, it does not appear that he had kept up his habits of excessive intemperance. The insurance-office knew that his life had been rejected by another office on the ground of in- temperance and a higher rate of premium was charged, equiva- lent to fourteen years more than Joddrell's a age, on the score of the detriment to his probable life. It appears that, sub- sequently, the medical report was found to have been somewhat too favourable, and that certain facts were not stated; but it did not appear that the insurer was aware of these facts, and it would be a very mischievous rule to lay down that inaccuracies in the ozi-
ginal proposals void or vitiate the policy. It -must inevitably happen that where life is at all doubtful the reports of friendly re- ferees and of the insurer's own medical adviser must represent the case rather en beau. Insurance-offices, particularly, know how to make allowances for those deviations from accuracy; they have their own means of making inquiries respecting the character and relative position of the parties making the proposals ; it is at their own peril to consider the evidence before them, to regard it as sufficient or other- wise, and to reject or accept the proposals. They have especial pro- tection in their medical officer, whose business it is to detect facts detrimental to life. It seldom happens that a patient under in- quiry by a medical man can conceal important facts bearing upon his ease; the medical man always knows so many ways of ap- proaching and surprising the examinee if he should prevaricate. The chief difficulty in cases of the kind lies with the insurance- offices and its own officers, who, in their anxiety to increase bu- siness, are sometimes too lenient in accepting the proposals; but it would be fatal to the insurance-companies generally if juries were to sanction the principle that the officers of the insurance- companies may be lax in the acceptance of proposals, and after a lapse of time become strict in the fulfilment of the contract. The tendency should be exactly the reverse—rigour in the examina- tion of the proposals, and liberality of construction on the liquid- ation of the policy. Every office of high character would consider a policy properly attested under the hands of its own officers as a bank-note, the presentation of which would be " in- disputable " ; though the parties holding it might be liable to process for obtaining it fraudulently. One office takes its title—the Indisputable—from having absolutely adopted that principle as a basis. But then, the fraud could not consist in a constructive inaccuracy, or of some question in the de- gree of the adjectives used in a medical report ; it should be such a fraud as would. subject the claimant to proceedings in a criminal court. By neglecting these plain rules, it is probable that insurance-offices have laid themselves open to receive pro- posals for the life of an Ann Palmer, or Walter Palmer, or "George Bate, Esq." ; while they are as likely to make the publie suspect that it would be better to incur the risk of loss by death than to lock up money in a policy of insurance which may after- wards be repudiated because some friendly referee had generalized facts, or a medical friend had taken too sanguine a view of his patient's health.
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