"Unfit" Underwriters

"Is not the public's chief criticism of life insurance today, if not the only one, aimed at our methods of distributing our product?"

At the 48th annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters in Denver last week delegates generally agreed that this rhetorical question by Vice President Alexander E. Patterson of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. struck at the heart of insurance's chief current problem. Major tenet of modern life underwriting is counsel and service to the insured--no high-pressure methods such as some salesmen use to sell anybody anything for a commission. Appreciating that self-criticism in business is as healthy as it is unusual, the 1,500 delegates in Denver's Broadway Theatre voiced approval as Mr. Patterson went on: "We have allowed to come in and remain in our business a horde of men unsuited and unfit for life insurance selling. ..."

One way to rule out the unfit is to dismiss them, and N. A. L. U. President Theodore M. Riehle announced that 66% of the membership had pledged themselves to do so. In the past year there were 3,000 such dismissals. A more constructive plan was offered by Vice President Henry E. North of Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. who announced the establishment of a $30,000 co-operative fund for underwriter education through the American College of Life Underwriters. Purpose: "To organize and make available in an organized manner the information which men heretofore entering the business have had to pick up largely in an unorganized manner."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.