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The Progress of Life Assurance Business in the United Kingdom during the last Fifty Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

David Deuchar
David Deuchar*
Affiliation:
Caledonian Insurance Company
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Extract

Omitting from consideration the speculative and evanescent schemes which were the precursors of life assurance companies, and taking into account only the properly-constituted life offices, we find that up to 1 January 1837 the total number of such companies which had been established was 94, of which 20 had ceased to exist, leaving 74 then in operation. The average age of these 74 companies was 17¾ years. Not more than 18 of them had been 25 years in existence, while the remaining 56 had only attained an average age of 7 years. It at first strikes us as a very remarkable circumstance that only 20 offices out of a total of 102 had succumbed in the long period of 131 years, dating from 1706, when the Amicable was founded: but it has to be borne in mind that in 1837 the great majority of the offices had not attained an age sufficient to test their stability.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 28 , Issue 6 , October 1890 , pp. 442 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1890

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References

page 447 note * The Blue Book gives the accounts of 111 companies. The 10 companies omitted in arriving at the above figures are accounted for thus: Industrial Offices and Friendly Societies, 5; Annuity Society, 1; Reversionary Company, 1; American Life Offices, 3.

page 447 note † The English and Scottish Law Life Assurance Association was treated as an English office, its annual meetings being held in London. The North British and Mercantile and Northern companies were treated as Scottish offices, their annual meetings being held in Edinburgh and Aberdeen respectively.

page 448 note * The blue book gives the accounts of 106 companies. In arriving at the above figures 15 companies have been omitted, viz.: purely Industrial Offices, 9; Annuity Societies, 3; Reversionary Company, 1; American Life Offices, 2.

page 448 note † See note † on preceding page.