Lavonne Anderson, Ann West and Julie Piraro have been the Policy Payments Dept.’s principal searchers for missing policyholders. They have learned to be shrewdly resourceful in those instances where our local agency can’t help us and where letters to the Insured’s last known address bring no response.…

[An] excellent source of information furnished by the application is the list of personal references listed on the back. That was the case recently when we were trying to locate a Japanese policyholder who shall be called Yosho Hirabashi. Yosho had taken out three 20-Year Endowments which he kept in force for the more than 10 years preceding his “relocation” [to a Japanese-American internment camp] during the war. He then had to let the policies lapse but each contract had enough value to continue the full amount of insurance protection and provide a small endowment benefit on the regular maturity date.

The maturity dates having arrived, all the simpler tracing methods were tried, but letter after letter was returned unclaimed. Finally, letters were written to each of the references listed on the backs of Mr. Hirabashi’s applications. That did it. One of the references, a Los Angeles attorney, was able to supply the Hirabashi’s address and now the Policy Payments “searchers” are feeling very cheerful about this letter—

“My dear sir:

I thank you kindly for the letter you sent me regarding my old lapsed policies. I am sending you those policies as you advice [sic].

Our family is very happy to know the money coming to me, though amount is not too big. We never thought of it. We have just bought a small home nearby and spent nearly all our savings, so it comes in very useful, especially. I thank you again for your kind deed.”