From the very beginning of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s welfare program, emphasis was placed upon maternal care. This work was carried out through millions of visits by company nurses to maternity cases, through education of the family by the nurse, and through special literature. In consequence, along with the marked improvements in infant mortality, there was a marked reduction in the death rate from conditions incidental to pregnancy and childbirth.
The maternal mortality was 19.0 per 100,000 policyholders in 1911, and had fallen to only 4.6 per 100,000 by 1941. Although part of this decline was attributable to the fall in the birth rate, a very large share of it represented an actual reduction in maternal mortality. Analysis of company records shows that its extensive maternity nursing program had a definite effect in lowering the death rate among the many mothers receiving such care.
In the childhood ages from 1 to 14 there was likewise an extraordinary improvement in mortality of no less than four fifths for Metropolitan term life insurance and industrial types of life insurance policyholders from 1911 to 1941. Life insurance rates reflected the fact that childhood was the period of life when mortality was at its lowest at that point in the 20th century. In years leading up to the mid 20th century, the minimum point, at age 10, had fallen to less than one death per 1,000, and it was gratifying to find that conditions among the children of industrial families were as favorable as in the population at large.
Each of the principal communicable diseases of childhood, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, experienced a precipitous decline in mortality and contributed its full share to the improvement in the death rate among children. But outstanding in this group was diphtheria. A news item in a company periodical issued to policyholders at the turn of the 19th century described three claims paid on the deaths, within five days, of three children in one family, all victims of diphtheria. Even a single death from that cause in the 1940s implied culpable neglect on somebody’s part.
The toll was reduced to insignificance, thanks first to the extensive use of antitoxin in the treatment of the disease, and later to the general preventive inoculation against it. The company worked continuously and intensively in the popularization of these treatments. At every point in the campaign during the time frame between 1911 and 1941, more so than any other type of insurance company, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was active in educating affordable life insurance policyholders (especially mothers), stimulating health officers, and organizing communities— in fact, whole states—toward the very desirable objective of “No More Diphtheria.”
At the very beginning of its life conservation activities the company directed its attention to the urgent problem of tuberculosis. The disease was the leading cause of death among industrial policyholders in 1911, with a death rate of more than 240 per 100,000. Scarcely a family but counted one or more victims among its members. Death claim payments for tuberculosis accounted for more than one fifth of the total paid out each year and were greater than for any other single cause. By 1941, tuberculosis had been brought down to seventh place in the list of causes of death, with a rate around 40 per 100,000.
The claim payments for this cause were only about 5 percent of the total and, despite the great increase in the amount of insurance in force, were actually less in amount than in 1911. A particularly pernicious feature about tuberculosis in the past was that it claimed so many victims in the most productive ages of life. No life insurance company would offer no exam term life insurance to life insurance policyholders that faced tuberculosis as a grave threat to their lives. The eradication of the disease made types of life insurance policies such as no exam term policies more of a reality.
In 1911 it accounted for almost two fifths of the deaths in the age group from 25 to 44 among white men, and almost one third among white women. By 1941 only one seventh of the deaths in this age group were due to tuberculosis. The death rate from this cause, among white men, had been reduced to less than one eighth, and among white women to less than one seventh of its level of 30 years ago. The improvement in tuberculosis mortality alone has meant the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives among Industrial policyholders.
at the turn of the 19th century described three claims paid on the deaths, within five days, of three children in one family, all victims of diphtheria. Even a single death from that cause in the 1940s implied culpable neglect on somebody’s part.
The toll was reduced to insignificance, thanks first to the extensive use of antitoxin in the treatment of the disease, and later to the general preventive inoculation against it. The company worked continuously and intensively in the popularization of these treatments. At every point in the campaign during the time frame between 1911 and 1941, more so than any other type of insurance company, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was active in educating affordable life insurance policyholders (especially mothers), stimulating health officers, and organizing communities— in fact, whole states—toward the very desirable objective of “No More Diphtheria.”
At the very beginning of its life conservation activities the company directed its attention to the urgent problem of tuberculosis. The disease was the leading cause of death among industrial policyholders in 1911, with a death rate of more than 240 per 100,000. Scarcely a family but counted one or more victims among its members. Death claim payments for tuberculosis accounted for more than one fifth of the total paid out each year and were greater than for any other single cause. By 1941, tuberculosis had been brought down to seventh place in the list of causes of death, with a rate around 40 per 100,000.
The claim payments for this cause were only about 5 percent of the total and, despite the great increase in the amount of insurance in force, were actually less in amount than in 1911. A particularly pernicious feature about tuberculosis in the past was that it claimed so many victims in the most productive ages of life. No life insurance company would offer no exam term life insurance to life insurance policyholders that faced tuberculosis as a grave threat to their lives. The eradication of the disease made types of life insurance policies such as no exam term policies more of a reality.
In 1911 it accounted for almost two fifths of the deaths in the age group from 25 to 44 among white men, and almost one third among white women. By 1941 only one seventh of the deaths in this age group were due to tuberculosis. The death rate from this cause, among white men, had been reduced to less than one eighth, and among white women to less than one seventh of its level of 30 years ago. The improvement in tuberculosis mortality alone has meant the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives among Industrial policyholders.
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