As you have been a valued customer of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company some years, we invite you to co-operate with this Agency in its [?] to extend the confirmed sums of Life Insurance. A [?] of [?] from a [??] to [?] friend or acquaintance, five calls, letter or desire to participate in the benefits received by those we exclusively insure. I expect that you will favor us and confident that you are experienced with prompt [??] accompanied this Company, we exclusively [?] which being filled and addressed to us in [?] indulge will greatly oblige,

Yours Truly,
J.H. Daskam, Gen. Agent

The Table first compiled in 1874, for the Insurance Year Book, has been continued by THE INSURANCE JOURNAL to the close of 1876, from the official returns of companies, and gives the premiums paid to companies from their organization to the close of 1876. This shows the absolute cost of insurance to the policy-holder.

The same table gives the amount the companies have paid back in dividends and in death losses and endowments and on surrendered policies, and the amount now invested by the companies with which to meet future claims.

This table takes no account of the interest received by the companies on [sic] these investments, but it does show incidentally that that interest account has been very large, because it has paid all the expenses of the business and has left a balance of nearly FIFTY-TWO MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for the benefit of the policy-holders.

The figures are as follows:

This nearly fifty-two millions of dollars represents, as will be seen, the total net increase of the premiums paid; represents to the insured the profit, in dollars and cents, upon their investment. The companies, as the agents of the insured, have paid, or stand ready to pay, as fast as claims mature, the entire SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO MILLIONS of premiums, and FIFTY-TWO MILLIONS besides.

How impossible it is to ascertain the rate of this interest increase will be understood when we remember that the business is like that of a bank; money is constantly coming in, and as constantly going out, and all there is to invest is the excess of deposits over payments. But as nearly as we can ascertain, where the interest accounts have been kept separately, this amount represents more than half the interest receipts, so that the average rate of interest received being over six per cent., the money paid in premiums has brought to the insured between three and four per cent. interest.

And this, after paying expenses, is surely a fair return. Four per cent. is all government will pay on its bonds. We do not wish to be understood, either, as saying that every one who insures will secure this result. The man who dies early will get a much larger return, and the one who lives long will help to pay it. This is one of the necessities of the distribution.

Life insurance is not, and does not claim to be a creator of wealth. It receives, to return again, as the earth receives sunlight and showers and dew, to return them all again in tree and grass and flowers and golden grain. It is proper to inquire what has been received and what returned, and it is no more than justice to the companies that this information should be put in the hands of every man holding their policies.

It seems desirable to us at this time, when so many are disposed to indulge in unfriendly and often times ignorant criticism of life insurance corporations, that the general public should be told of some of the actual achievements of life insurance, and should be put in possession of the facts upon which the advocates of the business rely when they urge its claims upon that public.

Allow me to introduce to you

I have been insured in this Company [Blank] years, and most cheerfully recommend it to your favourable consideration.

Yours Truly.
[Signature]