Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1905 — $14,000,000 HELD CONFISCATED [ARTICLE]

$14,000,000 HELD CONFISCATED

Wisconsin Commissioner Denounces Old Line Companies. In the advance sheets of his annual report on life insurance companies doing business in Wisconsin, Insurance Commissioner Host makes the startling statement that “the thirty-seven old-line life insurance companies transacting business in the State in 1904 confiscated about $14,000,000, which belonged to and should have been returned to their policy holders.” Wisconsin is one of the two States of the Union that require life insurance companies to attach “gain and loss” exhibits to their annual reports. The commissioner says that these exhibits “show that the reserve released on surrendered and lapsed policies during 1904 amounted to $51,747,449.85, whilo tho actual sum paid by these companies to policy holders who lapsed nnd surrendeied their policies was only $37,752,732.59.” 1 The commissioner says that “the loading or that portion of the premiums used for expenses by these companies in 1904 was $115,789,282.14, while the actual expenses of the companies amounted to $122,904,490.55, or over $7,000,000 more than that allowed for expenses.” With the $14,000,000 retained from policy holders really entitled to it, “it was an easy matter for thene companies to exceed their expense loading by over $7,000,000,” the commissioner declares.