234 BUSINESS OF LIFE INSURANCE

tence that it is a desirable investment is tantamount to a fraud.

Notwithstanding which facts, a considerable demand has been created for life insurance policies as investments. In consequence of which it behooves the companies as a matter of fairness both to make it plain that at the best the investment is good, only in case the value of the protection is considered, and then to render the handicap as little as possible by loading endowment and limited payment life premiums justly.

This means, also, that one of the chief causes of this demand must be eliminated, viz., the stimulation of "investment insurance" by offering higher commissions for it. Such commissions can be given, only by rendering the investment by so much less advantageous. In the largest and most representative life insurance company in the British empire the payment of a flat commission of so much per $1,000 of insurance, regardless of plan and age, has resulted in much the larger part of the business being whole life policies, a fair proportion old age provisions by means of long term endowment insurances and very few limited payment life policies.

The vast disproportion of limited payment and endowment insurance policies in American companies is due to peculiar causes that have been at work in this country. First of all should be mentioned the great disappointment in an-