Judged by the amount of space devoted to the subject in the Journal of the Institute, Unemployment Insurance has received but little attention from actuaries in the past Public interest in the problem of relieving distress due to unemployment became pronounced in the early years of the present century and led to the appointment in 1904 of a Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and, eventually, to the passing in 1911 of the first Unemployment Insurance Act. These important events found a somewhat pallid reflection in our proceedings in the form of reprints of extracts from Sir H. Llewellyn Smith's address on Insurance against Unemployment to the British Association in 1910 (J.I.A., vol. xliv, p. 511) and of Mr. Ackland's report on Part II of the National Insurance Bill (J.I.A., vol. xlv, p. 456). At a later date, when the scope of the national scheme was very greatly widened, the Government Actuary's report on the relevant measure—the Unemployment Insurance Bill 1919—was reprinted in the Journal (J.I.A., vol. lii, page 72).

The actuarial aspects of the liability of the employer towards his employees in respect of industrial accidents and diseases have not been discussed frequently at the Institute, and the comparatively small number of contributions to the Journal on this subject is doubtless to be attributed, in no small measure, to the difficulty of obtaining access to any considerable body of data bearing more particularly upon the duration of compensation claims. Some three or four Tears ago the author was asked to investigate the experience of a Colliery Owners' Mutual Indemnity Fund, and although the investigation deals with a single industry and relates to a period somewhat remote, it is hoped that, in so far as it may throw some light upon a subject regarding which but little information has as yet become available, the following account of the methods followed, and the results obtained, may nevertheless be of interest and possibly of some value. The author desires to express his indebtedness to the directors of the fund, which for certain reasons it is not desired to name, and which is hereafter referred to as “the Fund,” for their courteous permission to utilize in this manner information obtained in his professional capacity.

The presentation of this paper gives me an opportunity of publicly acknowledging to you the very graceful compliment you were good enough to pay to the American Institute of Actuaries, of which I was President, through my election to Fellowship in the Institute of Actuaries. Naturally my appreciation of the personal honour conferred upon me is very keen. I realize, however, that my election was a recognition of the younger American body on the part of its many friends in Great Britain and I desire, therefore, to convey to you, in addition to my personal thanks, the thanks of the Board of Governors and the members of the American Institute.

In Great Britain we are accustomed to a considerable degree of uniformity in the mortality tables used by Life Assurance companies for the construction of their premiums and for the valuation of the contracts, and such tables as are used are constructed from data supplied by lives assured here. In India there are operating a number of Companies granting assurances not only upon the lives of Europeans but also upon the lives of Eurasians and Indians, and it would not be surprising if there were great diversity in the valuation bases having regard to the extent of territory covered and the wide range of races and social conditions embraced. Such diversity certainly exists, but it appears to be due more to the idiosyncracies of those responsible for the valuations than to any attempts to express the real experiences of different companies by mortality tables based upon their own data and therefore specially applicable. For example, in the latest Indian Life Assurance Year Book, that for 1927, returns are given for 43 companies. These were valued upon either the HM, OM or OM(5) Table with the addition of a number of years varying from 0 to 9, so that there were no less than 13 different standards, the commonest being OM rated up 6 years or HM rated up 6 years, but in no case was the mortality table based on an experience of Indian lives, whether drawn from persons assured or from the general population. There must now be available a considerable body of experience of native lives and the writer having come into possession of data referring to one group of assured lives, though small in extent and somewhat special in nature, it seemed probable that a short description of it might serve a useful purpose in eliciting expressions of opinion and more extended information. By a curious chance it has, in fact, happened to coincide with the submission to the Institute of a paper based upon a very much larger and more valuable experience.

It is not without some feeling of diffidence that a Paper on the results of an Investigation into the Mortality of Lives Assured with the Oriental Government Security Life Assurance Co., Ltd., conducted jointly by the Actuary, Mr. Douglas Forrest, F.F.A., and the author is submitted. The Journal is more or less barren of Papers relating to the Mortality of Native Indian Assured Lives, though the subject of Indian mortality has often been considered by members of this Institute. Reference might be made in this connection to the investigations of Messrs. S. C. Thomson (T.F.A., vol. i) and A. T. Winter (J.I.A., vol. xliii) on the subject of the Mortality of Indian Assured Lives, but these being based on scanty data, the results must always be accepted with caution. Mr. Arthur Hunter's contribution (J.I.A., vol. lvii) relating to the experience of the Lives Assured with the New York Life Insurance Company from 1885–1921, touches on several points of interest and sounds a strong note of pessimism as follows : “The Mortality among natives of India insured by “our Company has not improved in the later over the earlier “years of observation” and “it is difficult to conceive that the “great increase in knowledge and the improvements in “sanitation have not affected the health of the middle and the “upper classes of India in the same way as they have affected “other (tropical) countries (such as Cuba, Brazil, Chile and “Porto Rico), although possibly not to the same extent.”