Conclusion

The disability clause represents one of the most recent developments in the life-insurance contract. Appearing in the United States first in 1896 and being unknown in any general way before about 1906, the clause has developed, without precedents to follow and the companies have necessarily faced two extremes in policy, that of giving the insured a feature worth while and that of giving him too much for the price paid and thereby perhaps endangering the future stability of the company. There has resulted a great variety of clauses, as the preceding pages have shown, and an utter lack of uniformity in the character of the disability contracts now in existence. Unlike in the extent to which they apply to all insured risks, unlike in their statement as to what constitutes disability, unlike as to the amount and nature of the benefits they grant/the clauses now in use do not enable one to state what a standard disability contract promises with the same definiteness that is possible with many other provisions of the life contract, such as surrender values, reserves, etc. A natural tendency, however, is already in evidence toward the standardization of these clauses, as is shown by the identical phrasing of certain parts of many clauses, and by the frequency with which many companies are revising their clauses. Some companies have already revised their disability contracts three or four times.

It is a dangerous prophecy, therefore, to indicate any definite direction which the development of the disability clause will take in the near future. But each succeeding change in the clause marks an advance and furnishes the policyholder with a more desirable contract. An illustration is the number of cases where clauses were issued originally granting a waiver of premiums, but were soon revised to permit the payment of the policy after disability in a specified number of installments; the latter contracts in several instances have been again remodeled by the inclusion of the continuous installment feature.

The rapidity with which the clause emerges from the experimental form in which it now exists will probably depend on two factors, viz., the accumulation of experience by the life-insurance companies themselves by which they will be able to measure its cost with more scientific precision than at present; and, second, the education of both insurers and the insuring public as to the economic value of the clause. The first named factor is a matter of time, and the necessary experience is accumulating as more policyholders are being insured under the clause and as claims are accruing. The economic value of the clause arises from the fact, as previously explained, that circumstances may, and do, arise where a man's insurance will lapse through his inability to earn an income and therefore to pay the premiums and where therefore he will be in a condition which from his own viewpoint justifies the maturity of his policy or at least his freedom from the burden of further premium payments. This latter factor is fundamental and must be the basis of any development of the disability clause that is to be permanent.