GOVERNMENT INSURANCE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2689, 20 November 1882, Page 4

GOVERNMENT INSURANCE.

[PRESS ASSOCIATION' TELEGRAM. ] ‘WELLINGTON’, November 18. Regarding the .alterations proposed in tbo G overnment insurance, the “ Post ”

says “ It is understood that some important alterations are about to bo made in the working of the Government insurance department, v/ith a view of further popularising the institution, meeting the convenience of the public, and encouraging habits of thrift. Hitherto the industrial branch has been worked separately from the ordinary departments, the main difference in its system being the granting of policies for very small sums and the acceptance of weekly premiums instead of yearly, half-yearly, or quarterly, as in the ordinary office. The collection, however, of the small weekly sums involves considerable work and consequent expense, which of course has to come out of the insurers’ pockets and to be charged in the premium. The result is that men who take policies of ,£IOO or £2OO on weekly premiums in the industrial branch find themselves at a material disadvantage as compared with the ordinary insurers who pay quarterly, and the discovery of this fact has /elicited some little grumbling on the part of those who are too obtuse to perceive that one weekly payment instead of one quarterly must necessarily increase the amount of clerical work which has to he paid for. To remove this difficulty, wo hear that it is contemplated to amalgamate both departments, and to work the whole under one general system. To enable industrial insurers still to pay their premiums in weekly sums two alternative plans will he provided. They will be able to give an order to the nearest postmaster to pay the weekly amounts out of sums deposited by them in postal saving banks, thus relieving them of all trouble in regard to the premium payments, or they will be supplied with premium cards after the style of those used for penny postage stamps in connection with ths saving banks. Those cards will he ruled off in thirteen squares representing thirteen weekly payments required to make up the quarter’s premium, the insurers can affix postage stamps to those at their convenience and hand them in at the end of each quarter, as representing the payment of the quarterly premium. This should give great facility to the laboring classes for insuring their lives. It is in contemplation to divide the surplus profits yearly in future, so that insurers will enjoy an annual bonus. This will no doubt be a very popular change.