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more incline all who do not need the insurance to withdraw. Persons who expect to die wery soon always consider that they- need the insurance. Of course, at age 9> under the American Experience Table and age 99 under the Actuaries' Table, where the one-rear term premium for $i,000 insurance is $1,000 — 1.o4 _ ' )()1.31i on the basis of 4 per cent. interest, no person would pay the premium at all, and the premiums for mane ages before that are prohibitive, also, for all except liwes that are consciously bad.
Yet these one-rear term premiums, if based on the usual tables, are for average liwes at these ages. If an-other mortality- table were made to cover the adverse selection caused b-- the increase of premiums based on average lines would they not driwe out the best of the lives which might have remained under the lower table' In other words, is there not a force at work in natural premium insurance, when carried to high ages, which causes a mortality table making a sufficient provision to be impracticable, and even impossible, perhaps'
This is now believed, on these ca priori grounds, to he the case. -Nothing- but actual experiment can demonstrate its truth or falsity. It will be seen, and it may now be stated, that raider all forms of life insurance on sound plans the insured really pars for all the protection he receives, over and above the reserve or "self assurance" fund, at the natural premium or one-rear term cost at the attained age. If this were fully understood by everybody, perhaps the natural premium plan —especially with decreasing amounts instead of increasing premiums—might be more popular and also might not exhibit more marked adverse selection at higher ages than other plans.
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