Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/182

170 INSURANCE [LIFE. Seven teen offices experi ence. English Life Tables. Institute of Actu aries Tables. Shortly afterwards a desire began to be pretty generally felt for a table of observations more extended than the statistics of any single office could supply, and accordingly a movement was set on foot in 1838 by a number of actuaries and others for collecting the experience of various offices " to afford the means of determining the law of mortality which prevails among assured lives." Seven teen offices agreed to contribute their statistics, which were found to embrace in all 83,905 policies, of which 44,877 were in existence at the time of giving in the returns; 25,2i7 had been "discontinued"; and 13,781 had fallen by the death of the persons assured. The results of the inquiry were in due time published, and upon them was founded a mortality table known as the Seventeen Offices Experience Table, which came to be used to a consider able extent by assurance companies. A peculiarity of this table is that it is based upon the experience of the offices in regard to the number of policies which existed and became claims, and not the number of persons who were assured and died. There having been in many cases two or more policies issued on one life, the results are not necessarily the same as those which would have been obtained had each life been reckoned only once. The general agreement of the results with those derived from other data referring to persons, and not to policies, seems to show, however, that the peculiarity referred to does not materially affect the accuracy of the table as an exponent of the value of assured life. Three English Life Tables have been constructed by Dr William Farr from the official records of the registrar- general for England and Wales. The first, contained in the Fifth Report of the Registrar-General (1843), was founded on the census returns of 1841, and the deaths recorded in that year. The second table, contained in the Registrar-General s Twelfth Report, was based on the same census and the deaths of the seven years 1838 to 1844. The third table had a much wider basis than either of the others. It embraced the census returns of 1841 and 1851 and the deaths of seventeen years (1838-1854). This table, with an extensive series of monetary and other tables deduced from it, was published as a separate work in 1864. The next set of tables demands more special notice in an article like the present, as being the most important collection of observations yet made in regard to the mor tality of assured lives. " Nearly a quarter of a century having elapsed since the period to which the combined experience of seventeen life assurance offices was collected, it began to be felt amongst actuaries and the managers of companies that a large mass of valuable materials had accumulated which, if combined, would tend to throw further light on the law of mortality amongst assured lives, and on other points affecting the interest and prosperity of assurance companies." Accordingly steps were taken by the council of the Institute of Actuaries, in co-operation with committees of the Association of Managers of Scottish Life Assurance Offices and of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland, " to collect and combine, as far as possible, the experience of the life assurance companies of the United Kingdom to the present time." This movement was begun in 1862, and in 1869 the results of the inquiry were pub lished in a volume containing 282 pages of tabular matter, with a preface (from which the above quotations are taken) by Mr Samuel Brown, then president of the Institute of Actuaries. The preface details the processes employed in collecting and arranging the statistics, and indicates the more important conclusions to be drawn from them. The experience collected on this occasion embraced the returns of twenty offices ten English and ten Scotch the total number of lives assured being 160,426, of whom 26,721 had died, 45,376 had discontinued their policies, and 88,329 remained on the books of the several offices at 31st December 1863, the date to which, as a rule, the observations were brought down. From these statistics several distinct mortality tables were con structed, viz.: Table H MF , comprising all the healthy lives, male mid female, ^included in the observations, the word "healthy" being used to denote those lives which had been considered eligible for assur ance at the ordinary rates of premium. Table H M , comprising the healthy male lives only. Table H M ( 5 ), comprising healthy male lives, but excluding from observation the first live years of assurance in every case. Table H F , comprising the healthy female lives. Other tables of a subsidiary character were constructed, but they do not appear to have been put to any practical use. The completed tables were published in 1872, together with an extensive series of monetary values deduced from them, and explanations by Mr W. S. B. Woolhouse and Mr Peter Gray respec tively, as to the method of graduation employed in the formation of the tables, and as to the construction and application of the- monetary values. In 1873 Mr R. P. Hardy published a series of Valuation Talks based upon these data. It appeared to the two bodies in Scotland already men- s& tioned that considerable advantage might result if the ex- off perience of the Scotch offices were separately ascertained, ex : besides being merged in the general inquiry. This was en accordingly done, and the results, arranged and tabulated by Mr James Meikle, were published in a report (1869) by the joint committee appointed to collect the information. The investigation embraced 115,254 policies on 94,749 lives, of whom 12,443 had died, 19,284 had discontinued their policies, and 63,022 remained on the books of the ten offices at 31st December 1863. These separate Scotch statistics were intended more particularly to illustrate the effects of the selection of lives for assurance. They have not been commonly employed as a basis for the calculations of offices. In 1872 Mr Meikle published Observations on the Rate of Mortality of Assured Lives, in which the materials furnished by these statistics are exhaustively treated. This work forms a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of the subjects with which it deals. The following tables will serve as a means of general comparison between the various mortality tables that have been mentioned. I. TABLE showing the Number of Persons ivho, out of 1000 living at the age of 10, will live to attain the ages of 20, 30, 40. it C., according to the iindcrmcntioned Mortality Tables. Age. North ampton, 1780. Carlisle, 1815. Equitable (Davies), 1825. Equitable (Morgan), 1834. Seventeen Offices Experience 1843. English, No. 3 (Males), 18G4. Institute of Actu aries II* , 1809. 10 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 20 904 943 951 928 933 945 962 30 773 873 879 861 863 863 899 40 641 786 786 784 787 771 823 50 503 G81 681 692 695 661 727 60 359 564 536 559 560 517 589 70 217 372 361 360 358 324 381 80 83 148 169 140 133 116 139 90 8 22 23 13 13 14 15 II. TABLE showing the " Expectation of Life" or " Mean After-Life time " of persons aged 10, 20, 30, ct-c., according to the under mentioned Mortality Tables. Age. North ampton. 1780. Carlisle, 1815. Equitable (Davies), 1825. Equitable (Morgan). 1834. Seventeen Offices Experience 1843. English, No. 3 (Males), 18G4. Institute of Actu aries IIM, 18C9. 10 39-78 48-82 48-83 48-32 48-36 47-05 50-29 20 33-43 41-46 41-06 41-37 41-49 39-48 42-06 30 28-27 34-34 33-98 34-53 34-43 32-76 34-68 40 23-08 27-61 27-40 27-40 27-28 26-06 27-40 50 17-99 21-11 20-83 20-36 20-18 19-54 20-31 60 13-21 14-34 15-06 13-91 13-77 13-53 13-83 70 8-60 9-18 9-84 8-70 8-54 8-45 8-50 80 4-75 5-51 5-38 4-75 4-78 4-93 4-72 90 2-41 3-28 2-65 2-56 2-11 2-84 2-36