Thirty American Table.—Based on the experience of 3o American offices and published in 1881.
American Medico-actuarial Mortality Investigation.—An in vestigation into the mortality of special groups, based on the experience of American and Canadian life insurance companies. Deviations due to climate, race, height and weight, and various diseases and occupations, were analysed and published in 1903 and 1912.
Among the best known Continental tables are the A.F. (France) and the Gotha (German).
Sundry tables relating to the experience of residents in the tropics, both native and European, have been compiled.
The construction of a mortality table from the crude data is a complex process, but the tabulation of particulars taken from office records is greatly facilitated by mechanical devices as the Powers and Hollerith calculating, sorting, and tabulating ma chines. Graduation, that is to say the removal or smoothing down of irregularities not inherent in the data, is the next step, and the tables in use by actuaries are eventually compiled by associating the graduated rates of mortality with various rates of interest to form what are technically known as commutation functions, the shaped bricks of the actuary's stock-in-trade, the combination of which in various ways enables him to compute his rates and value his risks. Select tables, as distinct from aggregate tables, are those in which the duration of the policy as well as the age of the in sured is taken into account, effect being thus given to the light mortality resulting in the earlier years of insurance from the elimination of unfit lives.
New life insurance tables are in course of preparation which will unquestionably render the Om. table obsolete.
The Life Assurance Companies Act, 187o, which was amended by the Assurance Companies Act, 5909, is to be further amended by the Insurance Undertakings Bill, 1927 (drafted by Depart mental Committee, but not yet [1928] introduced to Parliament).
The essential provisions of the Act of 1909 are (I) deposit of 120,000 with the High Court, (2) annual balance sheets and revenue accounts in form prescribed, (3) valuation returns in form prescribed at least once in five years, (4) separate funds for life business, fire business, etc. The most noteworthy additions of the 1927 bill are (I) separation of assets of different classes of business as well as separation of funds, (2) more detail and greater uniformity in returns, (3) powers enabling the Board of Trade to initiate steps for winding up an apparently insolvent company.
The Policies of Assurance Act, 1867, regulates the notification of dealings with policies to the insurance company.
The Married Woman's Property Act, 1882 (Clause ii) and the Married Woman's Policies of Assurance (Scotland) Act, 1880 confer certain powers on married women enabling policies to be effected for their benefit on their own lives or those of their husbands.
The Life Assurance Companies (Payment into Court) Act, 1896 enables life assurance companies to pay money, the owner ship of which is doubtful or in dispute, into Court in certain cases.
The principle of British legislation is freedom combined with publicity.
The legislation of most of the British dominions and colonies is modelled on the Act of 1870 and amending acts. An additional provision met with in dominion legislation is the protection of the first I1,000 to £2,000 of life insurance, unless specifically pledged, against a deceased man's creditors. Canada follows the American model. In Australia insurance is regulated by the laws of the different States; in 1928 there was still no Commonwealth legisla tion, but the Government had announced its intention to remedy this defect. It may be noted that New South Wales had no specific legislation regulating life insurance up to 1927.
Legislation on the Continent of Europe is as a rule more re strictive than that of Great Britain; in general it imposes a basis of valuation and places limits on investments.