OF TESTIMONY TAKEN BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INSURANCE, RELATIVE TO LIFE INSURANCE. The Committee on Insurance make their third preliminary. report of testimony taken before the Committee on Insurance, relative to life insurance companies. TESTIMONY. TUESDAY, April 3. The committee met Tuesday, April third, at three o'clock, P. M. Present Hon. E. C. Cowdin, in the chair, Messrs. Floyd-Jones, Coulter, Moody, Husted, Skinner Weiant and Lang. The CHAIRMAN Before proceeding to business, I wish to make a single remark; it is well known we have devoted a great deal of time to investigate matters connected with life insurance; we have had before us most of the leading gentlemen connected with the various companies, and have had full and complete testimony from them; we have received numerous communications, many of them anonymous, most of them of no great value, inasmuch as they were devoted to denouncing the companies and their officers. Mr. WEIANT letters? You mean individual members have received such The CHAIRMAN - Yes, there is hardly a member of this committee but has received letters of a denunciatory character, very few containing any suggestion on which to base practical legislation, or which will aid the committee in arriving at a just decision upon the matters about which there is so much complaint; it would be useless for me to speak of the bad management which we have ascertained in connection with many of the companies that have failed; the country is very much exercised about it, and justly so; at the same time I think I speak the sentiments of the committee when I say there is no desire on the part of the committee to unnecessarily alarm policyholders at the present time, and to give them to understand that their money has been thrown away wherever invested; we still have implicit confidence in many companies existing, and while I say this I desire in the examination that shall go on hereafter, so far as I have control over it, that we shall confine ourselves strictly to life insurance, and not wander off and consume as much time as we have in times past with matters not directly connected with the subject immediately under discussion. Mr. SKINNER-In direct connection with what you are saying, Mr. Chairman, I have a letter which I have received to-day from the representative of an insurance company which I would like to have read to the committee; it is as follows: PHOENIX MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Hon. C. R. SKINNER: - WATERTOWN, N. Y., April 2, 1877. DEAR SIR. While the Legislature are looking with great care after the regular life insurance business, and seeking to secure the |