Ages 70 and upward (full paid under their new numbers) Class B Under age 40.. Expected Actual Per Cent Policies Deaths The Northwestern Mutual Life commenced business on November 25, 1858, and at the outset its contracts provided that "if any declaration made in the application for the policy should be found in any respect untrue the policy should be null and void," according to the authentic record (page 291) of the "Semi-Centennial History" of the Company, published by it in 1908. In 1861 a so-called "temperance clause" was introduced in its policies, providing that “if the insured shall become so far intemperate as to impair his health or induce delirium tremens or shall die of any injury received when in a state of intoxication, the policy shall be null and void and of no effect." This clause continued in effect for many years, but in 1884 all prohibitions were made inoperative after three years from the date of the policy, "except that the Company retained the right to cancel the policy for intemperance during the lifetime of the insured, but in that case would pay the amount of the legal reserve held, on condition that the policy be surrendered during the lifetime of the insured and within one year from the date of cancellation" (pages 296-7 of the "Semi-Centennial History"). In 1908 the policy was still further liberalized by the insertion of a clause providing that "this policy with the application therefor contains the entire contract between the parties, and all statements made by the insured shall, in the absence of fraud, be deemed representations and not warranties," the Company's policies of the present day are incontestable for any cause except fraud after they have been in force one year, and there are no exceptions or reservations regarding the holder's use of stimulants or drinking habits. In the light of these exceptional precautions against the acceptance of men using alcohol to excess, either before or subsequent to the issuance of their policies, and the well-known conservatism of the Company in the selection of all its risks, there would seem to be the best of reasons for assuming that the non-abstaining element of the Northwestern Mutual's body of policyholders is, to say the least, as thoroughly representative of the moderate-drinking class of this country as is to be found in any life insurance company on this side of the Atlantic. Personally, I believe that to be an understatement, and the fact that, as the preceding tabulation of its fifteen-year experience shows, the ratios of actual to expected mortality among its total abstainers and non-abstainers in 1886 to 1900 were, respectively, but 53.10 and 59.02 per cent, as compared with the Mutual Life's corresponding ratios of 78 and 96 per cent in 1875-1889, apparently confirm this belief. In the Northwestern Mutual's case, the ratio of actual to expected mortality was but 11.15 per cent higher in the case of non-abstainers as compared with total abstainers, and in the case of the Mutual Life the excess amounted to over 23 per cent. Measured by any standard, therefore, the Northwestern Mutual's tabulated experience probably comes nearer to determining the real margin of difference between. total abstainers and moderate drinkers than would that of any other American life company. It must not be forgotten, however, that even in the case of that Company there is practically no going behind the returns based on the statements made by the policyholders when they were examined for their insurance, or, in other words, that in approximately all cases the policyholders have been classified according to their unsupported assertions as to whether they were total abstainers, or drank beer and light wines, or whiskey, or both kinds of beverages. Manifestly there must be a considerable margin of error in any classification so made. As one eminent actuary once put it: "Whatever the real facts may be, or whatever changes may subsequently take place, all that we have when the application is presented is given in the applicant's replies and therefore these replies are the important thing for us to investigate. As a matter of fact, the same limitation occurs in all mortality investigations based upon the applicant's statements in the application. When we investigate the effect of an attack of inflammatory rheumatism what we get is not strictly the mortality among men who have had inflammatory rheumatism but the mortality among men who say they have had inflammatory rheumatism as compared with those who say they have not had it. This may be a very different thing. It may be said that practically all of our statistical results consist of classification of answers found in the application rather than the facts as they actually exist." This somewhat pessimistic, but absolutely accurate, summary of any classifications so made concisely states the glaring shortcoming in any estimate of the supposed death-rates of abstainers and non-abstainers based upon alleged life insurance experience. That there undoubtedly is a more or less wide margin of error is conceded by practically every experienced life insurance authority who is not so ardent à prohibition advocate as to disqualify him for jury duty in the case. Just how wide the margin is, nobody knows, and nobody can authoritatively say. But the preceding figures of the Northwestern Mutual Life, in all probability, come nearer to the truth than any figures from any source which have preceded them. In a general way, too, they tally with Mr. McClintock's thoughtful conclusion of twenty years ago, based on the tabu |