SOME REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS CONCERNING INSURANCE
[A round-table answer given by Arthur L. White to questions asked at the Seminary Extension School in Norway in 1959.)
No question hour with a group of Seventh-day Adventist ministers, it seems, would be complete without a question on life insurance. We have the question before us, and I have been asked to discuss it.
This is not a question that is answered in a simple way with a Yes or a No. The question of insurance is a very involved one. We are living in a complex age almost a hundred years after Ellen White wrote the basic article entitled "Life Insurance," found in the Testimonies, vol. 1.
In our day there are many types of insurance that were not known in Sister White's day. At that time there was insurance for fire loss, and insurance of shipping losses. They were clear-cut insurances aimed at replacing property which was lost or destroyed. And then in her day life insurance, as it was called, came into being.
Couns ej^oriFlr'e^ sujrance
But first of all, let us deal with fire insurance. We will not find any statements in the E. G. White books concerning fire insurance, but Ellen White was in favor of our carrying such insurance on our homes, our churches, and our institutions. Elder W. C. White, my father, while his mother was still living answered a question on this point as follows:
"We do not find in Mother's writings any condemnation of the practice of insuring our property against fire. Mother has always regarded this as very different from life Insurance.
She keeps her own buildings properly Insured, and has encouraged some of our brethren having the charge of our institutions, to do the same."--Letter written by W. C. White, Aug. 5, 1912.
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He reports that Sister White at one time stated that if we did not carry fire insurance on our institutions we might suffer great loss by acts of enemies of the cause. We have her instruction given in 1881* concerning the insurance of her own home property:
'•Brother Palmer says he has written to you in regard to the insurance. If the house is not insured, it should be at once.'•—Ellen G. White Letter J*©', 1881*.
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Fire insurance of course is based on the replacement of the property that is destroyed by fire. Ellen White was clear that it was proper to carry such insurance.
They did not have in those days the various types of automobile insurance—running from public liability to collision and bodily injury—with which we are so familiar today. I think our workers and conferences generally have considered automobile insurance to be in the same category as fire insurance. We counsel, and in some cases we insist, that our workers carry proper protection on their automobiles. One may become involved in an accident through no fault of his own, and may become liable for large sums of money. I carry $250,000 aut(mobile liability insurance. This is the requirement of the General Conference of our workers now in General Conference employ, because the courts are awarding tremendous amounts in insurance today. But this is not a problem primarily before us today. The problen which some people face is over life insurance, and some ask, "Is it all right to carry life insurance? Should I carry life insurance?"
Counsels Call for Provision for a Rainy Day Now before we deal with life insurance, let us make it plain that Sister White did not advocate that the Christian should live on a hand-to-mouth basis. We are counseled that we should make provision for a day of need.
You will find a group of statements on this in the book The Adventist Home
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in the chapter "Provision for the Future," beginning on page 395. She writes of a Brother and Sister B:
"Brother and Sister B have not learned the lesson of economy. . . . They would use all as they pass along, were it ever so much. They would enjoy as they go and then, when affliction draws upon them, would be wholly unprepared. . . . Had Brother and Sister B been economical managers, denying themselves, they could ere this have had a home of their own and besides this have had means to draw upon in case of adversity."—Testimonies, Vol. 3, pp. 30, 31.
She says if they neglect these lessons, their "characters will not be found
perfect in the day of God."
She writes to a business man:
"You have been in a business which would at times yield you large profits at once. After you have earned means, you have not studied to economize in reference to a time when means could not be earned so easily, but have expended much for imaginary wants. Had you and your wife understood it to be a duty that God enjoined upon you to deny your taste and your desires and make provision for the future instead of living merely for the present, you could now have had a competency and your family have had the comforts of life. You have a lesson to learn. . . .
It is to make a little go the longest way."—Testimonies, Vol. 2, pp. U32-3.
She writes to another family:
"You might today have had a capital of means to use in case of emergency and to aid the cause of God, if you had economized as you should. Every week a portion of your wages should be reserved and in no case touched unless suffering actual want, or to render back to the Giver in offerings to God. . . .
"The means you have earned has not been wisely and economically
expended so as to leave a margin should you be sick and your family deprived of the means you bring to sustain them. Your family should
have something to rely upon if you should be brought into straitened places."—E. G. White Letter 3, 1877, in The Adventist Home, pp. 395-6.
To another family she wrote:

wee
to
: you should lay by in some e used up unless in case o
secure place fiye or ten f sickness. Tath economy
you may place something at interest."—E. G. White Letter U9, 188U,
in The Adventist Home, p. 396.
So it is clear that she felt that as a matter of security, it was perfectly proper for a family to put some money in a bank or one of our denominational
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institutions viiere it would yield some interest. Then they would have something to draw on in case of emergency or need. Writing to her own nephew, F. E. Belden, when he was a young man about twenty years of age, she stated:
"It is certain you have not economized in everything or you would now have something to show as the result of that wise economy which is praiseworthy in any young man. To carefully reserve a portion of each week's wages and lay by a certain sum every week which is not to be touched, should be your rule. . . .
"Diligence in business, abstinence from pleasure, even privation, so long as health is not endangered, should be cheerfully maintained by a young man in your circumstances, and you would have a little competency untouched should you become sick, that the charities of others would not be your dependence. You have needlessly expended much means which now might be on interest, and you be having some returns. . . .
"You might have had, even from your limited wages, means in reserve for any demand. It might have been invested in a lot of land which would oe increasing in value. But for a young man to live up to the last dollar he earns shows a great lack of calculation and discernment. "—Selected Messages, Book 2, p. 330.
This brings before us the picture of Ellen White's concept that every able-bodied person should make some provision for a time of special need. Seventh-day Adventists are not to live from hand to mouth, spending every week everything they earn. This places a certain principle before us very clearly.
The Life Insurance Statement
Now we come to the counsels concerning life insurance. In the year 1867, Sister White wrote an article which she entitled "Life Insurance." This is the basic article on this subject. It appears in Testimonies for the Church, Voi.
1, pp. 5U9-551. There are just two pages, and this appears also in Testimony Treasures. She stated:
"I was shown that Sabbathkeeping Adventists should not engage in life insurance. This is a commerce with the world which God does not approve. Those who engage in this enterprise are uniting with the world, while God calls Hxs people to come out from among them and to be separate. Said the angel: 'Christ has purchased you by the sacrifice of His life. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your bodjy, and in your spirit, which are God's." "For ye sire dead, and your life if hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory."' Here is the only life insurance which heaven sanctions.
"Life insurance is a worldly policy which leads our brethren who engage in it to depart from the simplicity and purity of the gospel. Every such departure weakens our faith and lessens our spirituality. Said the angel: 'But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.' As a people we are in a special sense the Lord's. Christ has bought us. Angels that excel in strength surround us. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the notice of our heavenly Father. Even the hairs of our head are numbered. God has made provision for His people. He has a special care for them, and they should not distrust His providence by engaging in a policy with the world."
Now what have we been reading about? Anything about finances? Finance
isn't even mentioned. The first half of the article does not deal with monqy.
It deals with the spiritual side of the question of life insurance. The
Christian may not enter into certain arrangements which may mar his intimate
dependence upon God. Could it be that we may do certain things which will
somehow militate against that implicit trust which we should have in God?
I can't read anything else into the paragraphs I have brought to you.
New from this point on she deals with the financial side of the question.
"God designs that we should preserve in simplicity and holiness our peculiarity as a people. Those who engage in this worldly policy invest means which belong to God, which He has entrusted to them to use in His cause, to advance His work. But few will realize any returns from life insurance, and without God's blessing even these will prove an injury instead of a benefit. Those whom God has made His stewards have no right to place in the enemy's ranks the means which He has entrusted to them to use in His cause.
"Satan is constantly presenting inducements to God's chosen people to attract their minds from the solemn work of preparation for the scenes just in the future. He is in every sense of the word a deceiver, a skillful charmer. He clothes his plans and snares with coverings of light borrowed from heaven. He tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit by making her believe that she would be greatly advantaged thereby. Satan leads his agents to introduce various inventions and patent rights
and other enterprises, that Sabbathkeeping Adventists who are in haste to be rich may fall into temptation, become ensnared, and pierce them-
selv||Qt^^ugh with many sorrows."—Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 1,
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Later Mention of Life Insurance
Now that sets before us the picture of that article. In the later years from time to time Sister White had occasion to mention life insurance. In Australia in 1892 Brother Faulkhead carried life insurance. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge, and in connection with the counsel Sister White gave to him that he could not serve two masters, that he must not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, and he should separate from this secret society, she also counseled that we are not to "invest money in these organizations," "in the hope of making provision for the future."--Selected Messages, Book 2, p. 133. In connection with his lodge membership, he was carrying life insurance. This he dropped, and he reported to Sister White that he had. She commended him for so doing in these words:
"I am very thankful to our gracious Heavenly Father that He has given you strength through His imparted grace, to cut yourself loose from the Free Mason lodge, and all that relates to the society. . . .
I rejoice also that you have cut loose from the life insurance policy. . . .
"The assurance of heaven is the best life insurance policy you can possibly have. The Lord has promised His guardianship in this world, and in the world to come He has promised to give us immortal life. God is in earnest with us. He means just what He says, and He is not to be trifled with."—Ellen G. White Letter 21, 1893. (Oct. 8, 1893.)
Subsequently Sister White had occasion now and then to speak incidentally
of life insurance. She referred to 2 Peter 1:8-11 where the diligent and
faithful are premised an abundant entrance into "the everlasting kingdom of our Lord end Saviour Jesus Christ." Here is one such comment:
"An eternal life-insurance policy is granted to us. We need not go to the world to get our lives insured; we may come right to the promises of God, and take Him at His word, receiving the assurance that we need never fall."—Ellen G. White MS U9j 1909.
She never spoke favorably of life insurance.
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In the year 1898 Elder Frecierick Griggs was living in Battle ('reek and was one of the leading teachers in our college there. Sister White was in Australia. grother Griggs made up his mind one day that he was going to take out life insurance. He felt that times had changed, that things were different now. He said to himself of the 1867 counsel on life insurance, "I don't think this counsel applies." He was planning to take out life insurance the next week. But on Friday he received from Australia a letter from Sister White. This letter had to do with certain articles he had written far one of our journals, but twice in the letter she stated, The Lord is your life insurance, or words to that effect. She didn't discuss life insurance, but she just referred to it. He said to himself: "Why should Sister White, over in Australia, write to me that Christ is my life insurance in a letter I received just before I was going to take out life insurance?" And he didn't carry out his plans to take out life insurance. He felt it was a message which the Lord had sent to guide him. He tells of this experience in the Review and Herald of August 3, 1939.
Some Points to Consider Now
There are some factors to be taken into consideration. Life insurance as it is written today is quite different from the life insurance which was written when Sister White wrote this basic article, and even through the full period of her writing. It seems to me that it is proper to take into consideration the situation as it existed when the words were penned nearly a hundred years ago. This principle is made clear in a statement from Sister White found
in Selected Messages, Book 1, on page 57. "Regarding the testimonies, nothing is ignored, nothing is cast aside, but time and place must be considered."
Principles do not change. An application of principles may alter somewhat with changing circumstances. Now let me give you an illustration that
is very, very clear.
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In the year 1905 Sister Write wrote to our sisters in Loma Linda that in the interests of good health and convenience they should make their skirts shorter. Such a message is one which must be understood in the light of the length of the skirts the women were wearing at the time. There are certain specific counsels concerning which, as we apply them, we must take into consideration the conditions as they existed when these counsels were written. There are not many such counsels. I want to emphasize that really there are only a few. Principle does not change. '‘The instruction that was given in the early days of the message is to be held as safe instruction to follow in these its closing days.11—Selected Messages, Book 1, p. hi. We must ever seek to find the basic guiding principles and then apply them in our present-day situations.
Now it is a fact, and we must recognize this as we thoughtfully study this whole question of life insurance and what we shall do about it and what we shall counsel our church members to do about it when they ask, that very great changes have come about in life insurance. Life insurance back in the time when Sister White first wrote about it was quite largely a gamble. Companies were not reliable. They would be here today and gone tomorrow, and thqy were known to take unjust and unfair advantage of those who had taken out insurance. In the United States it was not until about the year 1906 that life insurance came under the control of the laws of the land, and it was not until about 1930 that that control was made as widespread as it should be. Today life insurance in the United States is governed by the same laws that govern the banks, and the life insurance companies are among the strongest financial institutions of the country. They are governed by fair and upright principles. From a strictly business standpoint, life insurance is in general considered one of the
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safest investments that can be made. I am speaking of it now as the world looks upon it.
Abuses of Life Insurance in Early Years
But when Sister White wrote this article in 1867, that was not so. In fact, in some features it was a sort of an investment scheme to get rich quick. An individual could take out life insurance on some other person, any person. He need not have what is today known as an insurable interest in the person. For instance, anyone could take out life insurance on the wife of the President of the United States. And it was a general, common thing to gamble in that way. There would be aged persons in the almshouse, and a business man could take out life insurance on such persons. If they died, he won in the gamblej if they didn't die, he lost. It was quite a common thing back in those days for business men, as they met on the street to say, "Well, how is your man?" In other words, "Will the man on whom you are carrying insurance live or die?"
There were several men in the State of Michigan back in those days who were hanged for their crime. These men had taken out $30,000 life insurance on a man in the poorhouse, and they thought he wouldn't live, but he did. Thqr saw to it that he didn't. They took him out early one morning and drowned him so they could collect their insurance. But the law caught up with them and they were hanged.
I just use that as an illustration of what the insurance situation was at the time when Sister White wrote. It helps us to understand some expressions
she uses in this article on life insurance where she speaks of Satan leading his agents "to introduce various inventions and patent rights and other enterprises" (IT $5l) to tempt "Sabbath-keeping Adventists who are in haste to be
rich." To me these words in this life insurance article have some significance.
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This feature is right in the life insurance article. Does this not help us to see at least one angle of what Sister White was dealing with?
Now when Sister White speaks of patent rights, she wasn't talking about a person who invented something protecting his invention by a patent. But there were agents who controlled certain patents. They went around the country selling the rights of these patents in certain areas, and thqr would suggest that a person would get rich quick. Sister White wrote that far every hundred dollars Seventh-day Adventists put into those patent rights, they got about one dollar back. (See IT 66U.) In other words, they wanted to get rich quick, and they lost everything they invested. She brings this thought into this life insurance article. She speaks of those who would benefit financially losing their money. She said: "But few will realize any returns from life insurance, and without God's blessing even these will prove an injury instead of a benefit."—Testimonies, Vol. 1, p. ££0. As I have pointed out, there were many companies that were dishonest. The people wouldn't get anything.
Then there is another factor, and I take this from a business manual.
It points out that in the case of life insurance estates of $£>000 or more, when this was paid to the individual to whom it should go, 9056 of such estates were dissipated entirely inside of two years. It just disappeared. It was spent or they were often swindled out of it, or at any rate, it vanished. In other words, that which the wage earner had labored so diligently to provide for security for his family often did not prove to be so, because in two years time the money was gone. For that reason life insurance companies in the United States have encouraged the writing of policies that would pay so much per month, rather than just the whole thing at one time. But we see in that the fulfillment of Sister White's words.
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What Should We Do?
We are asked in the light of this, what should we do? That is a question which each individual must settle in his own heart. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has never taken any action relating to life insurance.
There are certain matters which are left with the individual to decide himself. I have many people who come to me and ask, "What should I do about life insurance?" and I answer, "I cannot tell you. If you have come to talk to me to learn what Sister White has written about it, I can present the counsel and some of the circumstances, but as to what you should do, you must settle that on your knees with God and with your conscience, but let it be an enlightened conscience."
The Church Cares for its Ministers
There are many problems in this. We as Seventh-day Adventist ministers have the best insurance there is in the world. There is no better insurance than sustentation. Sister White called most earnestly for sustentation. In Volume 7 of the Testimonies there is an article beginning on page 290 where she speaks of a fund that should be set up to provide for workers who are no longer able to labor. In 1911 the denomination established the Sustentation Fund.
Now life insurance is usually on a fixed basis. If a person takes out life insurance to be paid in a time of need, say at $90 a month, it will be paid at $90 a month. But suppose there is inflation, and money values change— as is true in France today—then insurance means virtually nothing, because it is paid at the rate of $90 per month, regardless of the conditions of finance.
But sustentation is tied to the wage rate, and as financial conditions and wages are adjusted to meet those conditions, sustentation is adjusted. It is the finest insurance that there is in the world.
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Several years ago, an earnest self-employed SDA business man asked me a question not easy to answer. He was a plasterer. He was a good workman.
He had four or five children, and he said, "What should I do about my family? Suppose a scaffolding broke and I was injured or killed—what would become of my family? If something happened to you, your family would have sustentation." What could I say?
Some time ago, one of our evangelists was working in Washington and a government employee accepted the message. Now our pastor said, "You must drop your life insurance." This man wondered about that. He had a family and was buying a home, and he wondered if he must give up financial security for his family if he was to be a Seventh-day Adventist. He went to the local conference office and said, "What provision do you make for your ministers?" He learned about sustentation, and he learned of several types of insurance which we were carrying on these ministers. "And your ministers have that protection?" he said, "and you tell me if I become an Adventist I can not have any protection? If I should be removed as the wage earner, my family would have no support."
Burial Insurance
We are asked about burial insurance. In some of our larger churches in certain parts of the world the church members band together in a plan, and if there is a death among their number, each one contributes so much money.
It meets the funeral expense and provides just a little in addition. Of course,
when their turn comes, their family will benefit. It is a case of sharing one another’s burdens. That is what the church should do. It is all within the
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church. Surely no one could criticize that.
But now, what about a well-established business concern of the world which operates on the same basis? They know about what the expenses are going to
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be each year, so each one who participates in the plan pays a certain amount each year. It is not much different than when the church goes together. It is a group of men and women banding themselves to share mutually one another's burdens. I have never felt free to criticize a person who felt that he should make such provision.
Accident and Hospital Insurance
Akin to burial insurance in which the burden is, in reality, shared by one another and spread over a large group, is accident insurance and various types of hospital insurance. Provisions in these lines are usually considered as in order and most denominational institutions carry some such insurance on their employees, either at the employer's expense or on a shared expense basis.
A Forced Savings Account
There are many types of insurance today which are more or less forced savings accounts. The family must pay a certain amount each month, and money accumulates in the insurance company, and the insurance company invests the money and it earns something from that. The returns above the expense of operating the company build up the capital of the person who is making the investment. At the end of so many years, he has an investment in that company. He may borrow on it. At a certain time it becomes payable to him, but if he should die before he finishes making his payments, because he has established a life insurance estate, the total amount becomes payable to his family. So that type of insurance is more or less of a forced savings account.
We must keep in mind too that building a life insurance estate can be a very heavy drain upon the person's income, and could draw in money that should be used in another way. Excessive insurance will demand regular heavy payments, thereby curtailing funds that should be placed in the cause of God.
It was the Lord's plan that the church would share in the burdens of the members. I think that as a church we have never lived up to the full expectations of God in that matter. The Lord has made very clear to us that cases were to arise which would call upon our benevolence and that would have its impress upon the development of character. But life has become very complex and expensive. Many of our believers are living in the cities and they do not have much of a margin of finances. They are hardly in a position to take in a widow or orphan should there be one in the church. And so life has become very much involved, and very complicated.
What shall the SDA church member do to make provision for the rainy day? Home ownership is good. We may invest in our institutions and save at the bank. Some do not find it possible to make such provision.
A few years ago the United States government in its laws provided Social Security. It is more or less of a sustentation plan, but operated by the government. We have not discouraged our people from entering upon Social Security. Most of our employees in our institutions carry Social Security. Many ministers do. The full title of it is "Social Security and Survivor's Insurance."
Now there are many types of insurance that our institutions carry on their employees. In many countries they are forced to carry certain types of insurance. Keep in mind that today there are many types of life insurance. We must also keep in mind the unpredictable and devastating effects of inflation.
What Are the Principles?
I come back to this point: the Testimony article warns against any get-rich-quick scheme with its devastating effect on spiritual experience, to say nothing of financial loss. It brings to view, it seems to me, a certain danger
of building something with our own hands in which we place our trust in such a way that it interferes with the Christian's feelings of dependence upon God.
The relationship between the child of God and his heavenly Father should be a very intimate relationship. The hairs of our heads are numbered. God is cognizant of anything which disturbs our peace of mind. You will find that thought in Steps to Christ.
Now when it comes to life insurance, each individual must settle that question with God. I have never felt free to counsel a church member that he should drop his life insurance. Nor have I counseled one who felt he should do so that he should not follow this course of action.
And so it is a matter which we must leave with the individual. I think we should be very cautious in advising our people to give up their life insurance, especially if it means great loss to them.
I have found this—that after studying certain matters with individuals we are quite safe in leaving that individual with God to settle those things. The circumstances of different individuals are so different. Individuals may feel that they must handle matters in different ways.
May the Lord bless you as you give counsel, and as you find your way in this rather difficult problem.
Ellen G. White Estate General Conference of SDA Washington, D.C.
January 8, 196U