In October 1900, on the morning of the first day of the autumnal meeting of the Actuarial Society of America, Mr. Emory McClintock, Actuary of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, read a paper entitled “The Objects to be attained in Future Investigations of Mortality and Death Loss”, in which he stated that probably four-fifths of the publications of companies' general experience possessed only a “casual interest”, and that the same amount of effort might much better have been devoted to investigating special classes of business, adding that “it is “more important to the future interests of life insurance to learn “how fishermen compare with farmers, how physicians compare “with clergymen, and the like, than it is to gather all these “heterogeneous materials into one grand average in the form of “a new life table.”

A striking indication of the little interest taken by the actuarial profession generally in the subject of Pension Funds is shown by the fact that in the many published volumes of the Journal of the Institute, hardly any information is to be found with reference to such Funds.

This lack of interest in Pension Funds was noticed some time ago by Mr. Ryan (page 470, vol. xxxi, of the Journal), who remarked that “ it was a very curious thing that the important “ question of the valuation of Widows Funds had on no occasion “ been treated by contributors to the proceedings of the Institute. “ In Dr. Sprague's 20-volume Index there was absolutely no “ reference to the question of Widows’ Funds. … He might “ add that the Index to the Journal contained no entry relating “ to superannuation schemes, which was again a matter of great “ public importance.’

With a view to preparing the way, in some humble degree, to a generally satisfactory method of distribution hereafter, I beg leave to submit a few brief observations upon the merits and demerits of certain plans already in operation. Unhappily, I cannot at present, in the existing state of our enquiries, present any constructive notions capable of being fused into a symmetric system.

Life insurance in Denmark has certain peculiarities, which may be interesting perhaps also to foreign actuaries.

In 1871 the Danish Government thought to satisfy all the life insurance necessities of the country by establishing by law, and with the full guarantee of the State, one single institution, “Statsanstalten for Livsforsikring.” By this all legislation with respect to private life insurance was supposed to be rendered superfluous.

It may well seem an act of no small temerity to attempt a fresh paper on a subject so often and so ably treated in essays read before this Institute as that of the net premium method of valuation. I am fully conscious of this, and the more so that I cannot profess to be able to add anything appreciable to what has already been said, either expressly or by implication, upon the matter. It will be admitted, however, that the practical importance of the subject, its vital bearing upon the conduct of the business of life assurance, can scarcely be exaggerated. Mr. J. Hill Williams, commenting upon Mr. A. H. Bailey's paper on “The Pure Premium Method of Valuation”, in March 1878 (J.I.A., xxi,, 126), said “The subject of this paper is one upon “which we can never have too much writing or too much “discussion, for it is the very life of our science, and upon the “views which we take of this most important question depends “the safety of many of the greatest financial institutions in the “country”; and with the spirit of such remarks we shall probably all agree. That being so, I think I am right in saying further that we have had no express discussion of this topic at our Institute for several years past. It has, doubtless, on many occasions been referred to—as a thing so intimately intertwined with our daily practice could hardly help being—in connection with other matters primarily before us; but it has not been the actual and avowed theme for consideration.

All members of the Institute are more or less conversant with the “field” work of American Life Insurance Companies, but comparatively few have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the “inside” methods of these Institutions, which, as might be supposed, differ in many respects from the methods of British Companies. One of these differences is that Valuation Tables are much more extensively used there than in Britain, and it is not surprising, therefore, that various Valuation Tables have, from time to time, been published in America. No notice seems to have been taken of them in the Journal, so I propose, in the first place, to indicate briefly the contents of these publications, and then to refer to some of the American methods which necessitate the existence of these various Tables.