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Government Regulation of Insurance Companies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2013
Extract
The risks or hazards to which man and his economic interests are subject may be separated into two classes: (1) speculative risks resulting from general price fluctuations, and (2) the risks of production and consumption. The former fall upon a class as a whole, and hence are not readily transferred by insurance. The latter affect either individuals or small classes. They may therefore be borne by those upon whom they originally fall, or they may be shifted to other shoulders, or finally they may be distributed over the group as a whole. Primitive races are not only largely under the dominion of the aleatory forces, but they have no systematic method of distributing the losses arising from this source. Consequently the weaker individuals and those less endowed with foresight are rapidly eliminated. Nevertheless, the natural law of survival has never been allowed to operate without restraint. The family, the tribe and the nation in ancient times provided more or less effectively for the weak and unfortunate. Christianity introduced a new ideal and a new institution: the ideal of a universal brotherhood and the church as the active agency by which the burdens were alleviated. The church came to regard the care of the unfortunate and distribution of alms as its duty if not its inherent right. It thus gained a hold upon medieval society which it could probably never have attained upon purely religious grounds—a fact which may partially account for its early hostility to all forms of life insurance.
- Type
- Papers and Discussions
- Information
- Proceedings of the American Political Science Association , Volume 3: Third Annual Meeting , December 1907 , pp. 80 - 95
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1907
References
1 For a more complete analysis of the classification of risks, see Prof.Emery, H. C. on “The Place of the Speculator in the Theory of Distribution,” and articles there cited in Publications of the American Economic Association, Third Series, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 103et seqGoogle Scholar.
2 For arguments opposing regulation, see paper by Lippincott, Henry C., on “State Supervision Not Properly a Function of Government,” “Insurance Press,” Nov. 7, 1906Google Scholar; and “Testimony of J. H. McIntosh, in Hearings before the Judiciary Committee, H. of R., in Relation to Insurance,” 1906, pp. 120–137Google Scholar.
3 Rosselet, F., Fourth International Congress of Actuaries, Vol. II, p. 240Google Scholar.
4 This principle is applied in Germany. See paper by Dr.Douberitz, Von Knebelof Germany, in Fourth International Congress of Actuaries, Vol. II, p. 230Google Scholar.
5 Report of Armstrong Committee, Vol. X, pp. 366-7.
6 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Corporations, 1906, pp. 4-5.
7 “On the Province of State Supervision of Life Insurance Companies,” by Ohisholm, James, Fourth International Congress of Actuaries, Vol. I, p. 1006et seqGoogle Scholar.
8 Journal of Accountancy, April, 1906, p. 525Google ScholarPubMed; August, 1906, pp. 290, 297; November, 1906, p. 74.
9 Welton vs. Missouri, 91 U. S. Reports, 275.
10 Unpublished address, Prof. F. Green, Urbana, Ill.
11 Report of Armstrong Committee, Vol. X, p. 360Google Scholar.
12 Cf. papers by Adan and Le Jeune, Third International Congress of Actuaries, London, 1900.
13 “The Commercial Aspects of Federal Regulation of Insurance,” by Dryden, John F., p. 17Google Scholar.
14 Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary in Relation to Insurance, Wash., 1906, p. 140.
15 Majority Report of the Committee on Insurance Law, Am. Bar Association, Aug. 24, 1905.
16 188 U. S., 321.
17 In re Debs, 158 U. S., 591.
18 Dryden Bill, Sec. 16.
19 Wilson's Works, I, p. 335Google Scholar.
20 Hamilton's Work, Lodge's ed., III, p. 203.