Switzerland. Report on compulsory insurance against illness and working of mutual aid societies.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Switzerland. Report on compulsory insurance against illness and working of mutual aid societies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    distributioa and the excessive number of small aocieties. otlier in administration, in the number, age and sex of their members, in the rate of the premiums charged and in the nature and duration of tlie relief afforded. In many societies, indeed, insurance against sickness, tiie primary object for which they were started, has, through neglect of the proper safeguards, gradually been converted into insurance against oM age and inHrmity ; the scale of premiums remaining the same, although quite unsuited to the altered character of the undertaking. In others, again, but little attention seems to be paid to maintaining a proper reserve fund, the one object of ambition being to reduce the scale of premiums to a minimum, or to raise the indemnite de chomage to a maximum. As regards, moreover, this latter form of relief, some t^ocicties content themselves with verifying the actual fact of illness, with- out inquiring further whether any portion of the money granted to relieve it is expended in obtaining proper medical treatment. Their unequal The unequal manner in which the societies are distributed over the country, and the constant increase in the number of small societies are also considered serious drawbacks to the development of any system of insurance. Professor Kinkelin, one of the most competent authorities on the subject, to whom we are indebted for much of the information contfiine<l in this report, draAvs attention to the fact that in some tovvns as many as 20 societies, averaging about 30 members each, may be found existing side by side in a state of vegetation from which, owing to their meagre resources, they are unable ever to escape. AVere they, on the'other hand, to join together so as to form one large society in which the public could place confidence, the number of members would rapidly increase, while the prosjiect of finding men among them capable of administering and developing the resources of the society would be proportionately greater. The advantages to be reaped from combination, botli by members individually, and by societies in their corporate c^ipacities, are well exemplified in the cases of such societies as those of the cantons of Berne, of Vaud, and Neuchatel, while the dangers which some contend must necessarily arise from the centralising tendency of such a system can, Professor Kinkelin tldnks, be easily guarded against by establishing a local control over the administration of relief through the districts or communes of which the societies would be composed. Such an arrangement, moreover, would greallv racilitate the free circulation of members between one society and another, although, in order to avoid pecuniary loss being caused to any individual society, from the difference in age of the members, thus interchanged, he would jiropose that, when a member is obliged to leave his original eoclety ov/ing to a change of domicile, the surrender value due on his policy of insurance should be paid over by that society to the one into v^-hich he may eventually be received. Comstitution To give some idea of the constitution of these larger societies, of the Mutual may briefly sketch that of the Mutual Aid Society of the canton Aid Society of y,^^^ founded in the year 1846, for the purpose of securing to the cantoQ oi ' ••• ^1 r '^^ Vaud. Its members a provision in the case of illness.