"ALL-IN" INSURANCE AND MALINGERING [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,--With reference to the enquiry of " Constant Reader," nig trouble is quite efficiently met by many existing friendly societies. I refer particularly to those organised on the Holloway system, under which at the end of each year the whole balance of income after providing for sick-pay and management is divided up and allocated to the separate individual accounts of the members. The less the disbursements for sick-pay during the year, the larger the amount which can be credited to the accounts of the members. Therefore, every member is a watchdog against malingering. There is a committeeman in every parish who is officially on guard, quickly gets hints from other members whenever there is occasion to suspect the genuineness of illness, and upon any doubt confers with the medical officer. The result is excellent. The annual appro- priation to each member is usually within five shillings of his year's contributions, and sometimes much nearer. His account carries interest, and the fortieth report of one of these societies, now before me, shows that each original member has to his credit more than double the amount of his contributions (luring the forty years. Thus he has had the assurance of sick-pay in illness all the time for nothing, and has a very useful sum accumulating for -withdrawal at sixty-five, or for benefit of his widow, or other heirs, if he dies earlier. But forthe societies' efficient check upon malingering the results would be far less favourable.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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