GOVERNMENT LIFE INSURANCE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2382, 4 November 1880, Page 4

GOVERNMENT LIFE INSURANCE.

The Australasian Insurance and Banking record has a long article on the debate which took place last session on the Government Insurance Department. We quote the conclusion of the article: —“We do not aver that the New Zealand Govoremcnt Insurance Department deserves such severe censure as that bestowed upon the proposed Canadian one, though if wc arc to believe several of the members of the House of Representatives, it was started with very much the same object in view. Putting that aside,, however, it offers no greater facilities to assurers than the mutual oilices competing with it, it does not invest its funds to such advantage (the average rate of interest realised being about two per cent, less), while there is the danger of unsound lives finding their way on to its books —the proposals forassurance being, we believe adjudicated on by an insurance commissioner, whose office is to a certain extent a political one, who has no special training for his work, and who may in fact previous to his appointment have known little or nothing of assurance practice. Against these disadvantages the only special advantage it has to offer is that thr policies are guaranteed by the colony. The security, however offered by a mutual office established on sound principles and managed by trained officials is, we do not hesitate to affirm, lit tle, if any less than that of a Government department. As Professor de Morgan says: ‘ There is nothing in the commercial world which approaches even remotely, to the security of a well established and prudently managed life insurance company.’ AVhile the security of the one is therefore practically as good as the other, the advantages which a private association offers over that of a Government Insurance Department are very considerable.”