The medical adviser in life assurance / by Edward Henry Sieveking.

  • Sieveking, Edward H. (Edward Henry), 1816-1904.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical adviser in life assurance / by Edward Henry Sieveking. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    life insurance, tells us that many of Graunt’s obser- vations are as curious for their accuracy as for tlieir originality. As a specimen of the curious sugges- tions which h'e makes, which may he of use to modern political economists, he advised, when the entire population of London was about 384,000, that means should he taken to check the growth of the town, the first point to attend to being, to ascertain whether the city of London had “ grown big enough.” It is unnecessary for our purpose to dwell on the details of the development of life insurance business. Suffice it to say that the first actual insurance com- pany* was established in England in 1714; the Union Assurance Society, the London Assurance Cor- poration, and the Koyal Exchange Assurance Cor- poration, followed in 1720 ; the Equitable was founded in 1762; the Pelican in 1797, At the present moment the Insurance Directory gives the names of 152 companies transacting life insurance business, showing the enormous extension which this branch of providential commerce has taken. Whether * “In manufactures and the industrial arts, the excel- lence of the Netherlands was no less marked. In naviga- tion, their seamen were skilful and adventurous. Fleets of merchant ships traded with the coasts of England, France, Spain, and Portugal. Their fisheries were pursued, with ex- traordinary daring, as far as the coasts of Scotland. So far were they advanced in the arts of commerce, that in 1310 there was an Insurance Chamber at Bruges.” (There are no authorities quoted for the last statement about insurance.)— Democracy in Europe, by Sir Thomas Erskine May, 1877. VoL ii. p. 7.