Vickipedia

POST-OFFICE INSURANCE is a valuable addition to the many useful services which our postal establishments has been enabled to render within the last few years. Book-post, sample-post, money-orders, and postal savings-banks, all additions to the original letter-post, and newspaper-post, have been found to work so satisfactorily, that the legislature has been encouraged to intrust to the same organization a new system of insuring lives and granting annuities—specially intended to foster provident habits among persons whose savings can be but small.

In 1853, an act of parliament made an improvement in the then existing state of insurance law, by facilitating the purchase of government annuities through the medium of the savings-banks; and in 1864. another statute gave a great extension to those portions of the system which had been found to work well, effecting at the same time alterations in those which had exhibited certain defects during eleven years’ working. Great facilities are introduced by this act for securing annuities by small payments. Not only may the National Debt Commissioner’s employ the trustees of savings-banks to receive and pay the moneys, at a certain rate of remuneration; but the Postmaster-general joins in the arrangement, acting as a medium between the public on the one hand and the commissioners on the other. Ample tables and regulations have been printed, for the guidance of the Commissioners, the Postmaster-general, and the local postmasters throughout the kingdom. On the completion of these tables and regulations in 1865. the practical working of the system began. The tables of the premiums to be charged for life-insurances, for immediate annuities, for deferred annuities, and for deferred monthly allowances, are sold by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, the government printers, for 5 1/2 d. (the cost of the paper and printing); but similar tables are kept for inspection at the local post-offices without charge.

In regard to insurance, distinct from annuities, persons of either sex may insure through the medium of the post-office. The limited ages are from 16 to 60, and the limited sums from £20 to £100. In order to afford every possible facility in the payment of the premium, minute calculations have been made of the exact sum to be paid at each instalment, by yearly, quarterly, monthly, or fortnightly payments, and terminable or not at a particular age. In order that there may be some limit to the labor thus placed on the postal authorities, no periodical instalment is made smaller than two shillings. No one life can be insured for less than £20 in the whole; but when a life has been insured for £20, further insurances maybe effected on the same life from time to time, until the whole sum for which it is insured amounts to £100. The following is a tabulated example of nine different modes of paying the premium on one particular insurance, to suit the convenience of the insurer. A man in his 30th year may insure £100 to his survivors at his death :

If an insurer who has duly paid all instalments for five years, should desire, or be compelled by circumstances to withdraw from the engagement, a portion of the past premiums will be repaid to him—never less than one-third of the total amount.

In regard to immediate annuities, persons of either sex may purchase annuities of not more than £50, and for lives from 10 years old and upwards. The premiums necessarily vary with sex, age, and amount. Thus, a man aged 65 can purchase an immediate annuity of £10, paid half-yearly, for £88, 18s. 4d.; whereas, a woman of the same age would have to pay £103, 16s. 8d. Two or more small annuities may be purchased for the same life, provided the total amount does not exceed £50. Any two persons may purchase an annuity on their joint lives, with or without continuance of the annuity to the survivor.

Deferred annuities form another element in the scheme. These annuities are very varied iu kind, and the amount of premium depends on a great number of conditions—ainount of annuity; age and sex of the person; length of term for which the annuity is deferred (that is, the number of years which are to pass before the commencement of the annuity); mode in which the premium is to be paid; and the condition whether or not there is to be any return of purchase-money under certain contingencies. As examples, take the following : A man aged 30 may purchase a deferred annuity of £10. to commence on his reaching the age of 60, and due half-yearly, for one immediate payment of £21, 3s. 4d., or an annual payment of £1, 8s. 4d.; in the case of a woman, the immediate or total payment would be £32, 8s. 4d., and the annual payment £1, 17s. 6d. If the person on whose life the annuity is to depend should die before the annuity itself commences, all the premiums paid up to that date may be returned to his or her representatives provided a contract to this effect is made in the first instance. The premiums are necessarily higher for such a contract. The four sums just mentioned, where past premiums are not returnable, would be raised respectively to £40, 9s. 2d., £2, 0s. 10d., £47. 0s. 10d., and £2, 7s. 6d., with the returnable clause included.

Many persons in humble life would prefer that the annuities due to them should come more frequently than half-yearly. To suit this class, a system of deferred monthly allowances is established. A man aged 30 may purchase a deferred allowance of £2, 7s. 3d. per month, to commence when he reaches the age of 60, by a payment of 8s. per month, until he reaches that age; the same monthly payment by a woman would realize a monthly allowance of £1, 16s. 7d. If the returnable clause (above noticed) is included in the contract, the man’s monthly allowance would be £1, 14s. 2d., and the woman’s £1, 9s. 4d., for the like payment of 8s. per month. In regard to married couples, a husband and wife may each be insured to the full amount of £100, and may each purchase an annuity of £50, or a monthly allowance of £4, 3s. 4d.

Persons whose lives are insured, or to whom annuities are granted, through the post-office, have direct government security for the payment of the money at the proper time; and this is one of the many valuable features of the system. It is not necessary here to describe the exact routine of proceedings for making an insurance or purchasing an annuity; the postmasters whose post-offices have been raised to the rank of insurance offices, are fully instructed in the matter, and will give all requisite information to applicants- We may add, that the British Postal Guide, an authorized publication, issued quarterly at 6d., gives a considerable list of tables of premiums payable at various ages for various kinds of insurance and annuity.