Elizur Wright

  • Let me review again for the Society the history of insurance regulation in the United States and the prominence in that history of one Elizur Wright.
    • He went to England in the mid-1850's to study actuarial science and to examine the life insurance business.
    • One of the things that made a very indelible impression on him both in England, and to a limited extent in the United States, was the public auction of life insurance policies, level premium whole life insurance policies without cash values.
    • When the individual owners of those policies reached an advanced age and they no longer had the means to pay the premiums they could sell those policies in the open market for a market cash value.
    • The problem was that the purchaser then had an adverse interest in the continuing longevity of that policyowner.
      • It was those humiliating and actually dangerous transactions that brought Mr. Wright to develop the nonforfeiture aspect of the Massachusetts Insurance Law and historically bring about required cash values.
    • Well, either we've forgotten that history or we believe that man has grown more mature and can now cope with that more effectively. It may help to think a little on those origins when designing a permanent insurance product without cash values

--  Dale Gustafson, Northwestern Mutual

1980 - SOA - Treatment of Existing Life Insurance Policyholders in Times of Rapidly Changing Economic Conditions, Society of Actuaries - 16p

  • 1866 - Book - A Curiosity of Law, Or, A Respondent in the Supreme Judicial Court as a Judge in the General Court, and what Possibly Came of it, by Elizur Wright - GooglePlay
    • Thousands of persons may have paid annual premiums to insure their lives, year after year, for half a life time, without having the slightest knowledge as to what portion of these premiums has been used up in the cost of insurance and what portion remains or ought to remain in the company's treasury as a provision• for risks which are still future.

  • 1873 - Book - Politics and Mysteries of Life Insurance, Elizur Wright - 265p - [GooglePlay-link]

  • 1875 0513 – Speech - Life Insurance for the Poor, Elizur Wright - p149-157  - Journal of Social Science, Containing the Proceedings of the American Association: Issues 7-9 - [GooglePlay-link]
    • Sheppard Homans of New York , in discussing Mr. Wright's Paper, submitted the following: Suggestions for a Plan of Life Insurance without Large Accumulations, or Reserves - (p157-164)
  • 1932 - Book - The "Bible of Life Insurance" Being a Complete Photographic Reprint of the Original Studies and Official Reports of Elizur Wright, "The Father of Life Insurance". Together with a Brief Illustrated Outline History of Life Insurance from the Earliest Times. Also a Brief Sketch of the Life and Works of Elizur Wright. Intended as a Practical Text Book and Reference Work for the Life Insurance Profession, by Elizur Wright