following:
The Insurance Commissioner had the honor of addressing the insurance committee of the General Court relative to the control of life-insurance companies by other corporations or by syndicates. For some years it has seemed to impartial observers who are conversant with life-insurance matters, and have also seen the eager quest by promoters for funds to finance all kinds of enterprises, and the determined struggle to grasp every opportunity for speculation, that there would be no cause for wonder if covetous glances should be turned toward the massive accumulations of life-insurance companies. It is well, therefore, to pause and ask what would be the chances for obtaining control of them, and what might be the result of such control, and in general whether the funds of such companies are imperilled by modern methods.
Insurance corporations on a capital stock basis, on the other hand, give their policy-holders no voice in their management. To obtain control of such a company it is necessary only to control by purchase or otherwise a majority of its capital stock. If a "king of finance" should start out with the determination to secure a majority of the stock of such corporations, the chances are that in some cases at least he would be successful. He might, it is true, be obliged to pay more than the "book value" of the shares; but perhaps control of a company's assets would well be worth twice or thrice or even more than what could be figured out as the value of the stock on the books of the company. On no other theory can the figure offered for life-insurance company stock in some cases be accounted for, since these offers are not warranted by the surplus nor by the dividends paid, nor by both combined.