EDUCATIONAL INSURANCE

An ingenious proposition in sot forth in a recent letter to the "New York Tribune" by a "professional man of limited income" who desires to obtain "educational insurance" for his one-year-old son. Briefly, he wants a renewable term policy of $5000, to be paid in suitable installments when the boy reaches college age. In case the boy dies before reaching eighteen, no money is to be paid; but if, having started, he fails to complete his college course, the balance due is to be paid to a designated third person twenty-five years from the date of the policy. The writer complains that the insurance companies demand a premium high enough to cover five times the risk of a child of one dying before he reaches the age of eighteen. Indeed, one agent told him that the risk was so low that the commission did not pay for the trouble of handing. All the companies consulted denied that there was any demand for such a policy.

Quite aside from the question of fees, however, the idea of insuring a child's college education is a most attractive one. At present, parents have to plan on paying the cost of such training out of current income, unless they set aside a definite sum each year to be sunk bodily when the time comes. Often, when it is too late to adopt the latter course, the head of the house discovers that he can no longer count on being able to employ the former. Above all, either expedient is beyond the means of many people who, like the author of the letter to the "Tribune", are "of limited means".

For these latter, the only hope is some sort of liberal insurance policy such as the "Tribune" contributor describes. There are doubtless thousands of families who would welcome such a scheme were it offered by any reliable company. But since sentiment on such matters is necessarily unorganized, and so inarticulate, it is the insurance agents who must take the first step by establishing a policy of this kind.