The claim division was a far cry from that of the Park Place days, when claims were handled by audit clerks in their spare time. The new paymaster, W. R. Marriner, came to the company in 1906. His first duties consisted of writing out death claim checks in longhand.

Special pinpoint machines in the check writing division could write payment checks at the rate of 28,000 a day. Another machine signed them in sheets of six, then cut and stacked them in numerical order, almost faster than the eye could follow. About 90 percent of all of the company’s checks represented payments to policyholders or their beneficiaries. Modern companies do not have such machines, as everything is done using computers. Instead of a lifw insurance quote being a long and tedious process, online life insurance quotes are accessible by anyone and term life quotes could be given from miles away.

It is an interesting commentary on the efficiency of the claim division that when it moved across the street to the new building in 1941, there was no interruption in its work. Over a weekend, the desks, files, and other equipment were moved; telephone and Dictaphone connections were ready for use in the new location, and the first claim was handled promptly at 9 o’clock the following Monday morning.

The division required a force of more than 200 people to handle the routine of payment and to complete the mortuary records. There were consistently some 10,000 death claims and 2,500 disappearance cases in the active files. Ordinary and industrial claims were treated in substantially the same way. There was not the slightest difference between a large or small claim in order of payment.

However, the district manager had authority to make immediate payments and advances on certain industrial claims, with approval from the home office for ordinary or group policies. There were also considerations for whole life insurance payments as opposed to payments for term life insurance. This is because in the case of permanent life insurance, there is a much different process involved.

There was a dramatic story in the number of policies which become claims in less than a year. A substantial amount of claims had always been on short-lived policies, demonstrating proof of the need for life insurance. In 1941, $3,206,078 was paid on 9,298 policies which had been in force less than one year, of which $864,488 was paid on 3,287 policies in force less than three months.

The families of these policyholders had reason indeed to be grateful to the agent who persuaded the insured to act in time. An increasing activity of the life insurance business had been the management of claim funds after the death of the insured, in a real sense, insuring the insurance. The Metropolitan began this practice in 1897, about five years after the reorganization of the ordinary department.

In that year an "optional modes of settlement" clause was added to ordi­nary policies, a feature which provided that if the insured desired, the benefits could be paid, not in one sum, but in a series of equal annual payments extending over a specified number of years. The aggregate amount paid was larger, by reason of interest, than if all payments were made immediately. This added service not only relieved the insured of anxiety as to his family’s investment and management of the insurance proceeds, but also assured a regular dependable income; and the minimum rate of interest guaranteed by the company on the optional modes of settlement was very favorable.

Since the beginning of 1907 practically all ordinary policies had contained additional installment features as possible modes of settlement.Thus, the insured or beneficiary may have elected to receive payment of interest only, for a specified period or until a specified event; payment of the insurance in installments; or payment as a life annuity. In 1941 the amount so left with the company for payment was more than $44,400,000. The sum held by the company at the end of 1941 as reserves to assure payment of the elected optional modes of settlement was $186,379,901, or about the total of one years death claim payments.

The use of optional modes of settlement became generally accepted and the Metropolitan policy often served for two lifetimes instead of one. It was an interesting paradox that after premium payments had been made on a policy, the company should have difficulty in finding the beneficiary or assignee in order to pay the claim. These situations were relatively few and arose because policyholders, overlooking or forgetting the non-forfeiture provisions of lapsed policies, assumed that these contracts had no value.

The Claim Division of the Metropolitan included, therefore, a human "lost and found bureau," which attempted to locate the proper payees in such cases, and also to investigate whether persons, supposed to have disappeared, were dead or alive. In 1941 alone this Section located 1,363 live persons who, it was declared, were dead when the claims were made. The insured had been located in almost one third of the disappearance claims.