One of the advantages of the book's having been out there for more than a quarter century is that there's been time for people to report back on what it's done for them.

There are only two things as complicated as insurance accounting and I have no idea what they are.

The life insurance policies advertised on the radio with the line "You cannot be turned down for this coverage!" are actually saying, "For policies this small, it would cost us more to decide whom to turn down than simply to accept everybody - and make them pay through the nose."

I was a writer for 'New York' magazine. I had been to business school, but what did I know? Still, everybody from the receptionists on up to the editor would ask me what they should do with their money.

Not surprisingly, the insurance lobby recoils in horror at the prospect of automatic coverage (including, when it was first proposed, Social Security), no matter how efficient it may be. Automatic coverage eliminates sales commissions and profit.

One of the advantages of the book's having been out there for more than a quarter century is that there's been time for people to report back on what it's done for them.

The first American insurance company was the Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire, founded in Charles Town in South Carolina, in 1735.