At first sight one might perhaps be loth to admit that a very close analogy can be drawn between the insurance of under-average lives and the investment of life assurance funds. It seems to me, however, that in some important respects the two operations are comparable.

I think it must be admitted that practically any life, however bad, would be insurable provided the risk to be run could be accurately assessed and the requisite premium charged. Similarly, almost any investment would be worth buying provided that the risk of the loss of capital could be accurately gauged and the rate of interest was sufficiently large to pay what may be called an investment rate and to provide a sufficient margin to cover the risk of loss of capital.