4   WOMEN IN LIFE INSURANCE EDITION; INSURANCE ADVOCATE   January 27. 1923

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN THE LIFE INSURANCE PROFESSION

By Griffin M. Lovelace, Director Life Insurance Training Course, New York University

A few days ago as I entered a large office building on Broadway, not far from Wall Street, I met a young woman who, had she been seen at a tabic in the Biltmore, would probably have been suspected of being a "society girl." She and I both stopped ann. wished each other a Merry Christmas, and then I asked her: "How is business?"

"Since I saw you last," she said, "I have had a great sorrow. My mother passed away. So I haven't been able to work hard, as I usually do. But in the past six weeks I have written $300,000 of life insurance.

About two months ago I was talking with a young woman, who is about 27 or 28 years old, in regarrd to her work. I asked her, frankly, how much she had earned in 1921. "Four thous-and dollars," she said. "But my 1922 earnings will be much larger. A few weeks later she told me she had just written a case for $100,000. She now has her own secretary and is a successful business woman.

In a small city in the west a few months ago two young women who work on a partnership basis told me they were earning between $3,500 and $4,000 each.

The other day I read in the monthly publication of a certain company that a young woman who graduated at Carnegie Tech had been appointed district agent in a territory which the company had always rated a hard one, and that she was making good, appearing regularly on the company's lists of leading producers.

I personally know women who are supporting their families—little children—by their earnings as life insurance representatives.

But why multiply examples? Every life underwriter who has investigated the subject, even casually, knows that many women are making good in the field of life insurance. Not all of the women who enter life insurance sue ceed—of course not; nor do all the men. Thousands of men fail—unfortunately, the number is too great—clue largely to lack of training, lack of initiative and lack of industry.

Women are no less subject to failure through these same causes than are men. I have seen women fail because they wouldn't work, or because they had no initiative, or because they did not have proper training. But if women of ability and initiative will study hard and work hard they will find that the field of life insurance offers as great opportunities as any other occupation that is open to them.

Life insurance should make a particularly strong appeal to women as a profession. Women are, as a class, interested in social improvement in a very practical way. To them social betterment is visualized in concrete terms and in specific cases. The woman's intimate knowledge of a woman's problems should make it easy for her to picture the specific difficulties which the wife and mother in a given family would face if the husband and father should die.

And there are many women who have entered life insurance because their own experiences have taught them life insurance lessons which they feel they can teach to others, to both men and women. For example, a few weeks ago, a woman who has recently entered the life insurance business said to me, "My story is really the story you tell in your `House of Pro-

tection.' My husband left me $50,000 of life insurance. I deposited it in the bank and never invested it. That was three years ago. I have spent and given away money until I am now forced to earn a living. My husband's family have borrowed money they will never pay back—can't pay back. Now, I am going to earn my living by selling life-income policies, that will safeguard insurance funds and guarantee an income for life.

Another woman said: "My husband carried as much life insurance as he could afford, enough so that I was able to pay all his debts and the funeral expenses, pay off the mortgage on our home and then make an investment that brings in about $30 a month. I must earn enough money to pay the rest of our expenses and to educate my boy and girl; and I have chosen life insurance, because I know what a wonderful thing it is for a woman whose husband dies and leaves her little children to bring up."

And I know a young woman, a life insurance agent, whose father left her, a monthly income of $150 payable foi twenty years certain and as long thereafter as she may live. Her story teaches the life insurance lesson to her clients.

The independent nature of the life underwriter's work should appeal to women. It takes them out of doors. No one lays clown office hours which they must follow. They can take a vacation when they need it. But, of course, if they abuse this independence and fritter away their time, they can't succeed. They must use their independence wisely, schedule their time properly, set hours for them-selves, and live up to their schedule.

WHAT INFLUENCED ME TO ENTER THE LIFE INSURANCE PROFESSION?

By Daisy Cokeley of Connecticut
Mutual at Harrisville, W. Va.

A subject so personal, calls for a personal response, and to make clear what influenced me to enter the life insurance profession, please allow me to briefly recount my own experience.

I was not predisposed toward life insurance or any business that involved salesmanship. I was naturally re-served and solicitation of any sort was for me temperamently difficult and even distasteful. But the needs which life insurance ONLY could

meet justified the effort to meet them and the work has become more and more attractive.

I was thoroughly sold on the idea

of life insurance when I received the message that my husband had been killed. Hundreds of miles from home and by the bedside of my dying mother I was brought face to face instantly not with death but life. Life with all its realities and a consciousness that I must face it alone. His Ha, bilities were mine. His obligations were mine. His reputation as an honest, upright citizen, a widow's dearest possession, was in my hands, and it was only through the means of life =isurance which he had provided that I have been able to keep that reputation unsullied, have daily bread, a

home and a fair start in the struggle.

I have only been in the profession two years and have not had a death claim, but I know the problems that will confront my prospect's widow and when I may bring to her and her children the proceeds of the fore-thought and love of the husband and father whom death has snatched away, I know that I shall feel real joy and be conscious of a worthy work well done.

I feel that I am identified with one of the noblest professions in existence ranking with that of the ministry, medicine and teaching. Where the doctor fails and when the pastor can only console, the agent may feel the supreme satisfaction of having per-formed in a practical way a very noble service to his fellow men.