The Purpose of Industrial Insurance

Industrial insurance, as the name implies, is a form of life insurance especially designed to meet the requirements of the wage-earning or industrial population. Its primary purpose is to provide for this large element in our population an absolutely certain method of acquiring the funds necessary to assure a decent burial and the payment of the expenses for medical attendance during the last illness. But while this, special purpose has caused industrial insurance to become popular among wage-earners, its beneficent influence in other directions deserves special mention. Just as we found that ordinary life insurance constitutes a powerful factor for inculcating thrift, so the weekly premium plan used in industrial insurance has been one of the important means of educating a large class, which naturally finds it difficult to provide for contingencies, in systematic saving. Weekly premium payments five, ten or twenty-five cents a week to meet the cost of insurance soon develop a habit of saving which will have its wholesome effect in other directions. Industrial insurance also renders the further service of familiarizing the masses with the benefits of insurance, and has thus been responsible for greatly increasing the uses of other kinds of insurance. The wage-earner of to-day becomes the shopkeeper and salaried man of tomorrow and, having become acquainted with the beneficial results of industrial insurance, he will be in a much better position to appreciate the value of other forms of insurance, such as ordinary life, accident, health, fire; etc.