COMMERCIAL LIFE INSURANCE. The primary purpose of life insurance is the protection of domestic relations. Obviously the proceeds of a life policy may serve at the same time to protect the insured's business interests when these are unexpectedly deprived of his directing hand and brain; but in recent years the agency of life insurance has been more directly and broadly applied to commercial af fairs. After providing suitably for the family by means of a policy made in their favor, an individual may provide guaranty for business credit beyond his tangible assets by means of a policy made payable to his estate; and co partners may provide against untoward dis turbance of their joint capital and prospects by policies made in favor of the firm or of each other; while corporations may provide against loss through the untimely removal of ex perienced executive heads or of peculiar and essential talent by means of policies covering the lives of those on whom the company's prospects for the time depend. Owing to the immense development to-day of combined commercial interests and the consequent weight of responsibility resting on single lives, insurance running often to hundreds of thou sands of dollars, and in some cases to millions, is now placed to safeguard the financial sta bility of corporate concerns or to indemnify them in case of the loss of service difficult or impossible to replace. The simpler business
organization of a generation past called not often for such protection, but such is the pe culiar genius, talent or experience involved to day in many large enterprises that untoward removals in their personnel would cause serious if not irretrievable loss. Thus, on the one hand, commercial life insurance serves to aid in the development and stability of business by afford ing an additional guaranty for credit or for emergency loans, and on the other hand con serves business interests that might otherwise suffer from the loss of lives essential to their prosperity. The prediction is ventured by an authority that the life insurance policy will soon be an integral part of every considerable business arrangement. All the common forms of life policy are in use for commercial. pur poses, and the premium is considered an expense charge.