Life Insurance: It’s Economic and Social Relation © 1896
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CHAPTER VI

DEPRECIATION OF LIFE VALUESTHE USE OF
SINKING AND EMERGENCY FUNDS

Property is not treated as if it were immune from wear
and tear. Our life values are also exhaustible and life
insurance is the application of the principle of depre-
ciation to those values, its callable feature allowing for
sudden and premature loss and its sinking-fund feature
for gradual wear and tear. Whenever man has to ful-
fill future obligations dependent upon the continuance of
life, life insurance should be used as the sinking-fund
method to assure the financial realization of the contem-
plated objects.

Necessity of Using the Present to Meet Future Oblaga-
bons Dependent ‘upon the Continuance of the
TVork-ing Life
With reference to family and business, it is ordinary
foresight to provide a non-speculative emergency fund
out of current surplus earnings. Legal reserve life
insurance secures that result conveniently and effica-
ciously, and constitutes one of the best types of emer-
gency funds to which business or family surplus may
be allocated.
Life insurance illustrates the principle of deprecia-
tion applied to the working value of human life. In
business we hear so much about scientific provision for
depreciation and the use of sinking-funds for special
purposes, and any careful management goes on the
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