198 BUSINESS OF LIFE INSURANCE

provided by charging a premium for a sufficiently larger amount of insurance to furnish this larger annual instalment.

Very few companies pay over any surplus interest which is earned upon the funds held to provide these instalments and deferred benefits above the rate used by the company in its premium and reserve computations; but some of them do.

These are the principal forms of life insurance; with the exception of semi-endowments and double endowments, the former paying half as much in event of survival as in event of prior death and the latter vice-versa ; they may, in-deed, be called the only forms.

Notwithstanding which, the public is led to believe that there are almost as many kinds of life insurance policies as there are companies. Distinctive names like Tontine, Semi-tontine, Distribution, Accumulation, Dividend Investment, Dividend Endowment, etc., are given them. These really refer solely to the conditions as to time and method of surplus distribution and the application of the surplus. Usually they mean merely that the apportionment of surplus is deferred ten, fifteen or twenty years.

At the close of these periods options of settlement are given. These are no more than privileges to apply the surplus or the entire cash value, being the surplus and reserve, to pur-