§ 10. Future of insurance. It is striking evidence of the importance of the marginal principle that insurance should still be desired by men when the cost is so high and so large a part of the total premiums is absorbed in expenses.3 Insurance of all kinds grows apace, but its use would be wider and its benefits greater if the "tare and tret" of doing the business could be reduced. It seems a reasonable hope, now that the experimental stages are passed, that this may be done. It is true that some portion of the expenses of insurance companies give to the insured valuable services, such as inspection of houses for fire prevention, medical examination, and home nursing to reduce illness and conserve life and these services might be further extended. In the case of all kinds of insurance as yet a large expense for agents has been necessary to educate men to see the value of insurance and to purchase it, as well as for many other competitive expenses. It has been found that much of this expense can be saved by insurance in groups (for all employees in an establishment), by compulsory insurance (as of all work-ingmen), and by central state administration serving to regularize and unify the organizations. An important problem to be solved in the future is to find methods of insurance equal to or exceeding in their efficiency those now in use, but at much more moderate cost. It is not improbable that universal cooperative state insurance, both of life and property, will be worked out. This important question will be further considered in connection with "social insurance" as a measure to benefit the working classes.

3 See ch. 12 § 6.

References

Dawson, M. M., The business of life insurance. New York. A. S. Barnes & Co. 1905. Gephart, W. F., Principles of insurance, vol. I, Life. New York.

Macmillan. 1917. Huebner, S.S., Life insurance. N. Y. Appleton. 1915. Zartman, L. W., (Ed.), Life insurance. Ed. Yale Univ. Press. 1915.