1090 LIFE ASSURANCE OFFICES. 
of the lessor. Where the debtor is unable to meet immediately the 
demands of his creditor, it frequently happens that an arrangement is 
made for him to secure the amount by paying an annual premium for 
assuring the same. 
It not unfrequently happens that the creditors themselves pay the 
whole of the premiums on the assurances. Such transactions are mere 
speculations, in which on the average they must expect to be losers, as 
they contribute towards the expenses and profits of the offices. 
Persons advancing money on life annuities may secure the capital by 
assuring the life. 
Life assurance offices may be divided into three separate classes : 
Proprietary Companies, in which a number of individuals jointly sub- 
scribe a capital, undertaking to secure the payment of the sum assured, 
reserving to themselves the whole of the profits; Mutual Assurance 
Companies, in which the whole of the profits are divided amongst the 
assured ; and Mixed Proprietary Companies, partaking of the nature 
of the other two, a portion of the profits being reserved for the share- 
holders, and the remainder divided amongst the assured. 
The mode of apportioning the profits varies in different companies, 
some applying it to the reduction of future annual payments, others 
adding to the amount assured by the policy. Some companies allow the 
assured to receive the profits in ready money, or to have them applied 
in reduction of the premium, or of the number of premiums, or to have 
an equivalent addition to the sum assured. 
A brief account of the different offices will follow, chiefly extracted 
from their own advertisements, which, however, are not to be taken as a 
certain guide without inquiry as to the practice of the office in respect to 
liberality and satisfactory discharge of claims. 
Such inquiries are necessary, since it has occurred that offices have 
unjustly refused at the time of decease to pay either the amount assured, 
or return the premiums, on the ground of error in the description of age, 
although no fraud was intended, or reasonably suspected ; advantages 
have also been taken where policies have been many years in force, of 
accidental omissions to pay the premiums within the limited time, 
although tendered in a very short time after, causing the policies to be 
forfeited, for the surrender of which a valuable consideration would have 
been given but for such accidental omission of payment. 
Legal objections of a technical nature have in many cases succeeded 
in inducing claimants to forego a part or the whole of their demands, 
without the office injuring itself by appearing publicly to be of a litigious 
character. | 
Such offices, we are happy to believe, are few in number; but while 
any such exist, it is our duty to put the public on their guard, that they 
may make the necessary inquiries before effecting any assurances with 
them.