Debentures of Trading Companies as Investments for Life Assurance Funds, considered in their Legal and Financial Aspects

Extract

The subject I have chosen for my paper is one which needs no apology for its introduction to this Institute, closely connected as it is with one of the most pressing problems which those responsible for the management of a life assurance office have to deal with at the present time. It is, no doubt, difficult, in the face of the eager competition which has to be encountered, to increase the business of an office; but it is scarcely less difficult to satisfactorily invest the surplus arising from the premiums when they are obtained. One is reminded of the picture which appeared a few years ago in Punch, in which a Dean, importuned for alms by a beggar, exclaims, “Ah, my good “woman, it is not the poor only who have their troubles; you, “for instance, have probably never experienced the difficulty of “finding investments, combining adequate security with a “remunerative rate of interest”! It is probable that she had not, but it is equally probable that the actuary of every assurance company in this country has already experienced the difficulty, and is likely to experience it increasingly in the future. The investments which, in the past, have found favour with life assurance companies, have not increased in proportion to the increase of the funds to be invested.