Verhovayak Lapja, 1944 (27. évfolyam, 1-52. szám)

1944 / Verhovay Journal

____________________________Verhovay Journal______________________November 9-1944

Presentation of the Portrait of Joseph Nihoff in Windber, Pa., October 22,1944

The first of the series of Verhovay heroes’ portraits was presented to the parents of a killed soldier in Windber, Pa., on Oct. 22, 1944, as reported previously. A photo was taken at this important occasion. In the middle we see the portrait of Joseph Nihoff, Verhovay soldier, who save his life for his country; the Honor Roll with the names of the 42 soldier members of Branch 59, Scalp Level, Pa., and the Service Flag: with the stars, representing: 42 soldiers and 1 heroic dead. To the left stand Mr. and Mrs. John Nihoff, parents of the dead soldier, who were presented with the portrait and to the right stand the three officers of Branch 59: Louis Vizi, president and Verhovay director, Joseph Muller, Branch-Treasurer, and Martin Leber, Branch Manager.

HERE IS YOUR LAST CHANCE

Managers and Local Organizers! Do you have difficulties soliciting new members? Here is a tip for you! Tell ’em; “'This is your last Chance!”

Friends and prospective members! Do you contemplate joining the Verhovay but decided to postpone it for some reason or other? Here is a tip for you, too! Don’t postpone... your last ehance is here!

Now, of course, we don’t mean that you can’t write up anyone after this chance has passed. And we don’t mean either that you can’t’“ join the Association once this chance has slipped away. No, of course not! The Verhovay will always welcome new members and will always endeavor to serve them in true fraternal spirit, giving them not only a 1st class legal reserve life insurance certificate, but all the good things the Verhovay Fraternal Brotherhood has to offer over and beyond life insurance protection.

Yet, the last chance is here, nevertheless, and will remain with us no longer than December 31, 1944, 5 PM, sharp and not a second longer.

* * *

For with the 1st of January, 1945, the following change in the By-laws of our Association, as modified by the XX Convention, will go into effect; “The accumulations maintained upon the membership certificates issued by the Association after January 1st,

1945, are the usual reserves computed on the American Experience Table of Mortality with interest at 3% per annum ...”

This is a very important change in the By-laws, for up until December 31st, 1944 the text reads as follows; “The accumulations maintained upon the membership certificates issued by the Association prior to January 1st, 1945, are the same as above, except that they are computed on the American Experience Table of Mortality with interest at Z'/z% per annum ...”

You see, the change in the by-laws means that the accumulations maintained upon the membership certificates will be computed with Vz % less interest New Year’s day.

Probably, this is all Greek for the majority of the readers, and so we will attempt to enlighten you on the subject to make you understand why this is said to be your last chance.

* * *

Reduction of the interest rate with which your reserves are computed, means lower returns on your investment. You all know what the situation is on the market at present. Investments yield lower returns than in the past. Even the best investment of the world, the War Bonds of your Uncle Sam yield less than 3% interest. And that is no small interest, if we consider that your saving-bank deposit yields only 1% on the average.

Ail insurance organizations preceded us in taking this step, for the simple reason that higher returns on investments could not be secured. The Verhovay follows suit together with the rest of the Hungarian fraternals, because it has to maintain the high standard of security that has achieved for our Association one of the highest ratings of any insurance organization in the country.

The Association to-day attains lower returns on its investments than in the past. The loss must be shared by the members who will join the Association after the 1st of January, 1945. They will receive correspondingly lower returns on their investment represented by the dues they will pay on their membership certificates.

INSURANCE—A CAPITAL

When purchasing insurance, you create a capital. You sign your name on the dotted line, pay your first monthly dues, and upon receiving your certificate, you have created a, let us say, $1,000 capital. When creating a capital via savings-deposits, you have to deposit so many dollars for so many months and years, until your Capital has been built up. In life-insurance you reverse the procedure. You create the capital, it is ready and yours, but you pay for it on the installment plan. The Capital is ready and yours, for in the event of

your premature death, your beneficiaries will receive the entire capital, whereas if you chose to create a capital via the Savingsdeposit plan, they will receive only what you paid in, plus interest. But your payments, or rather that part of your payments that is placed into the “reserve” (cash value) of your certificate, also bears interest, notwithstanding the fact that you pay in installments for the capital you have already purchased. (Isn’t insurance a wonderful thing, though? Just think of it! When you buy an automobile on the installment plan, you pay interest on the balance of your unpaid installments ... but when you buy a certain capital on the life-insurance plan, you receive interest on the installments as you pay them. You cash in twice on the insurance plan!)

Now, due to the decrease in investment-returns, your payments also will yield less interest, and therefore you will have to pay more for the capital you create on the life-insurance plan.

Let us make this clear by an example. The Verhovay reduced the interest rate once before, on the 1st of January, 1936. Up to that time accumulations were figured with an interest rate of 4%. Due to the fact that interest returns steadily decreased, the Verhovay had to reduce that rate in 1936 to 3.5%, following the example of all the other insurance organizations.

Let us take a 20 Payment Life certificate purchased at the age of 25. The monthly dues for that certificate amounted to $2.10 prior to Jan. 1, 1936. After the ?£% cut went into effect, the rate of ths certificate was raised to $2.24, a difference of 14 cents. This doesn’t seem to amount to a whole lot, but if you figure out what 14 cents per month for 20 years amounts to, than you find out, that after January 1, 1936, a 25 year old member was to pay $33.60 more in 20 years for his certificate than the member who joined the association prior to that date.

So you can easly see that a cut in the interest rate results in an increase of monthly dues. The less interest an investment yields, the more cash you have to invest in order to build up a certain capital. The same applies to the capital represented

in a life insurance certificate.

/»

JOIN NOW!

The 3% interest rate goes into effect on January 1st, 1945. That means that with the first day of the New Year-—a NEW RATE BOOK ALSO GOES INTO EFFECT. The rate book is now being prepared by the actuary of the Association. It will be printed before the end of the year. And then—all the managers will receive their new rate-books (now you see why the new edition of the By-laws did not include the rate book!), and mem-