In the life insurance industry it became less and less true that only the lower income groups were industrial policyholders. Industrial insurance, far from providing only burial funds, became more generally part of a larger family program. In the late 1940’s, a white male industrial policyholder who died in his late 30’s, left his family on the average close to $615 from his industrial insurance alone.



Moreover, the average payment rises to about $1,000 when the benefits payable from other Metropolitan life insurance rates (http://www.equote.com/info/life-insurance-info.html) were included. While the average amounts paid on the lives of white women were less—and properly so— the benefits were considerable, reaching a total of $585 for all Metropolitan policies when death occurred between the ages of 35 to 39. In addition to the funds that were provided in case of death, industrial insurance provided valuable benefits to living policyholders through endowments and through the availability of cash surrender values.

After some 60 years of development, industrial insurance became deeply rooted as an American institution. It grew because it served the needs of the people at that time and it served them well. There is no doubt that, in the beginning, industrial insurance was a crude instrument; but as time went on it was forged and refined in the crucible of experience.

The New York Insurance Department stated in the 1940’s, in reference to Industrial: "Certain it is that at no other time in its history has the business been on a sounder or more equitable basis." It became an essential means by which the majority of the American people protected their families. During the pioneer days much of the ground was uncharted and the founders of the business had to proceed cautiously, lest some false move bring the entire enterprise to economic disaster.

But as experience accumulated and the business developed, more and more substantial benefits accrued to policyholders. Industrial insurance became an important financial mechanism which helped to stabilize the finances of wage earners families during critical periods. It is an institution which proved to continue to serve the American people all the way up into the future of insurance, with policies ranging from basic life insurance to no medical online life insurance quotes (http://www.equote.com/li/term-life-insurance-quote.html).

In the years to follow it continued to be the form of life insurance for people who could pay only weekly or monthly premiums, who could afford to pay only small amounts, and who needed an agent to service their insurance. Industrial insurance, as so many of our other established institutions, has not always been beyond criticism; but in its effort to serve the people it went through many changes which resulted in improvement of its service.

From an enterprise originally operated for profit it has become very largely a mutual institution conducted for the benefit of the policyholders. In the Metropolitan this development went even further. There, the concept of life insurance as an instrument for social good expanded to include extensive activities in the fields of welfare and public health. Symbolic and expressive of this attitude was the company’s extensive welfare program, the largest ever launched by a private agency, developed primarily for industrial policyholders. The viewpoint of social responsibility permeated the entire organization.