to perpetuate any well-conducted assessment company for all time,
however large or small it may be, while the spectacle is presented to us
of level premium companies holding fifty to one hundred millions of
accumulations belonging to their policy holders, from which no possible
benefit, in most cases, will ever accrue to them." On reflection he must
see the absurdity of such statements.

The level premium system is a combination of insurance and investments.
The hundred millions are _investments_, and are necessary for the
integrity of the level premium contracts. Any assessment company in
which the rates do not increase as the members grow older should be
compelled to have the full premium reserve required by state law and
actuarial science to be held on level premium contracts. This is capable
of mathematical demonstration.

It must be borne in mind that the cost of insurance _proper_, that
is, the provision to meet current death claims alone, is quite as high
in the best assessment company as in a regular life insurance company,
for this cost depends on the careful selection of lives. The difference
in the two institutions is that the former dispenses with the investment
element, while the latter exacts it in connection with all their
contracts. Hence the price to be paid is greater. But is not the
_guarantee_ also greater?

The beneficiary under a death claim in an assessment company has for her
security the _hope_, or promise if you please, that one thousand
men will pay ten dollars each for her account. The beneficiary under a
death claim in a regular life insurance company has for her security not
only the actual payments of ten dollars each by one thousand men, but
the definite promise to pay in full by an institution which has ample