Református ujság - Fraternity-Testvériség, 1940 (18. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1940-09-01 / 9. szám
18 TESTVÉRISÉG FRATERNITY AND THE FIETH COLUMN An address by Hon. Louis H. Pink, Superintendent of Insurance of the State of New York, delivered before the N. F. C. of A. at Baltimore, August 28, 1940. When John Jordan Upchurch organized the Ancient Order of United Workmen in October, 1868 he could not know that he was the father of a great and significant movement of national proportions. The Order of United Workmen was intended to bring the benefits of insurance protection, lodge membership, fraternal ritual and service to the working people. It is strange that in beginning the fraternal movement in the United States little or no heed was paid to the great experiment of the friendly societies in Great Britain. They had the experience of a century or more behind them and had learned that a rigid assessment plan not based on scientific actuarial experience leads only to trouble and failure. They had found eventual success by adopting sound and tried methods and had become an important factor in the social economy of Great Britain. Fraternalism in this country refused to profit from the British experience. We had to make the same mistakes all over. The growth of the early fraternals led to the organization of numerous assessment life and accident companies. At one period they did more business than the regular life companies because the rates were apparently so much cheaper. Those who died early were about the only ones to profit from the cheap insurance. Those who lived had to accept reduced benefits and too often received little or nothing because of failure. In the New York Insurance Department report of 1890 there were listed 30 fraternals and 130 assessment life and accident corporations. The fraternals have increased to 85 but the assessment companies have practically disappeared. There remain one strong accident company and only four small life companies doing business in a restricted field. Why have the fraternals persevered despite their unsound practices in early days? How can we account for the 5.000,000 members and assets of some $1,300,000,000? The assessment life companies were inspired almost entirely for profit. The fraternals were organized primarily to extend good fellowship among men, to spread the benefits of education and culture, to visit the unfortunate and the sick, to bury the dead with proper dignity, and only as an incident, though an important one, to make it possible for members to have the benefits of insurance protection. It was this laudable and unselfish purpose, this desire to extend friendship and sociability, which enabled the early fraternal societies to triumph over their mistakes and rebuild the insurance structure on a sound and scientific basis. Through the lessons of experience, the closer supervision of state departments, uniform laws and improved methods developed at the insistence of the fraternals themselves, and, by no means least, because of the enlightened leadership of the National Fraternal Congress, fraternal insurance now enjoys an enviable record for financial stability and efficient service. There is still much to be done in bringing the smaller and weaker members to actuarial soundness. The supervision of the state departments should be extended to many fraternals which are now practically without guidance or control. The high place of leadership and authority which the National Fraternal Congress has won should be used in encouraging the weaker organizations to adopt sound methods with adequate dues and charges. The democratic control so difficult for our large life companies is made possible for the fraternals by the grouping of members in local lodges. There is an increasing demand for the extension of democratic control. The fraternals may be of great service to the entire field of insurance by encouraging and insisting upon actual control by the members. They can be useful to the entire institution of insurance as an experimental laboratory in policyholder management. Because of their organization through local lodges the fraternals are in a position to save
