Punched-card Equipment

Extract

‘Punch-card equipment is becoming more and more a convenient and useful tool of the actuary. For this reason, the study of, this equipment and its flexibility should and will occupy a larger place in the training of actuarial students in the future.’

R. J. WALKER, F.A.S.

The actuary employed in life office work is very closely concerned with the methods by which the valuation and other records of a life office are built up. It is surprising, therefore, that there are very few references in the pages of the Journal of the Institute to the use of punched-card equipment for life office work. The use of the equipment for calculations of interest to the actuary, such as the construction of tables, has also been largely ignored. Actuaries employed in work outside life oflices so often rely on punched-card equipment for their statistical data that the authors feel that no apology is needed to either class of actuary for presenting a paper on the subject. Punchedcard equipment has received much more attention in the Transactions of the Actuarial Society of America, most recent volumes containing a paper or note on its application.