Book Description

Excerpt from Vital Statistics in Relation to Life Insurance: Paper Read Before Subsection B, Section VIII, "Public Health and Medical Science," of the Second Pan-American Scientific Congress, Washington, December 30, 1915 Life insurance companies provide protection against the economic losses resulting from death. Consequently they must have, as guides for making their premium rates, the facts as to the mortality of their possible membership. The data of mortality must be analyzed for each year of age and for such distinctions as color, sex, and the general economic and social condition of the insured. This is the basis of the life insurance companies' interest in vital statistics, and, just as they have been dependent on this science for their safety and growth, so they have been, in turn, a very potent influence in its progress. In England, where modern life insurance first took definite form, and where it has attained the widest exten sion, vital statistics has likewise found its highest development. In other countries of Europe we find, with the growth of insur ance systems, a simultaneous advancement of vital statistics to serve the ends of insurance and of other social activities. The history of vital statistics and of life insurance in America likewise points to a most intimate and profitable interrelation. One need only recall contributions so basically important as the reports of Elizur Wright, 1859-1867, who, as first Com missioner of Insurance in 'massachusetts, gave direction to the evolution of insurance mortality experience; the American Experience Table of Mortality, first published in its present form by Sheppard Homans of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, in 1868; the report of Levi Meech, 1881, covering the mortality experience of thirty American life companies for geo graphic divisions of the country and for certain of the more important causes of death; and the report of E. J. Marsh of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1896, which continued further the analysis, by causes, of the mortality of persons insured under the old line plan. For many years the reports of the Actuarial Society of America have been replete withvaluable material for the statistical investigator. Mention should be made of the Specialized Mortality Investigation of 1904 by this Society, and more recently of the report made in conjunction with the Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors under the title, medico-actuarial Mortality Investi gation. These volumes have thrown a flood of light on the mortality of large groups of our population as influenced by sex, by occupation, by physique, by conjugal condition, and by habits of life; they constitute most important contributions to the vital statistics of this country. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.