212 BUSINESS OF LIFE INSURANCE

On this plan new business has been secured, in point of fact, at a lower outlay than without re-sort to it. Theoretically, it is meritorious. The "board" charges are often less than renewal commissions. If the board members really continued to assist the company, if their expectations were within reason and if the work were followed up with enterprise and the scheme faithfully and fairly carried out, it might be unobjectionable.

Instead, the thing is accomplished in almost all cases by excessive estimate of possible results and by uniting with these estimates illustrations of policy results, so that premium payment is assumed on the basis of reliance on these estimates. When disappointed, the board members become dissatisfied and, instead of aiding the company, they discredit it and refuse to recommend its policies. The company is thus prevented from following up the canvass, if, in-deed, it ever had such a notion. In consequence, after a time, the payment of the commissions to the board becomes onerous and attempts are made to get rid of it or to put a narrow construction upon the contract.

The first application of the "board plan" on a large scale was about thirty years ago. A very large growth in a very short time was the result. The first superintendent of insurance for New York, then out of office and practising as a con-