The assurance of diseased and doubtful lives on a new principle, more advantageous and equitable to policy-holders than the system hitherto adopted / by Morrice A. Black ; with observations on the characteristics of assurable and non-assurable lives, by A.P. Stewart.

  • Black, Morrice A.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The assurance of diseased and doubtful lives on a new principle, more advantageous and equitable to policy-holders than the system hitherto adopted / by Morrice A. Black ; with observations on the characteristics of assurable and non-assurable lives, by A.P. Stewart. 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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    CHAPTER II. The System on which Diseased and Dodbtfdl Lives hate HITHERTO been ASSURED. We have already explained the necessity for assuring only perfectly healthy lives at the ordinarv rates of nremium. But it does not therefore follow that it is incompatible with the Principles of Life Assurance to extend the system on an equitable basis to the class which we have characterized as Doubtful, and likewise to the class denominated Diseased or Invalid. Some forty years ago, the idea of assuring any other kind of lives than select ones, such as are described in the last chapter, would have been considered a perilous or rash enterprise. The thing was nevertheless attempted, and has been carried out with a reasonable measure of success and safety on the part of more than one Company, but with a very questionable degree of equity to the individual persons assured. The practice of assuring lives devi- ating from the recognized standard of health was first projected, we believe, by the late Dr. George Pinckard. That gentleman established an Ofiice in the year 1824 for the avowed purpose of assuring lives that were inadmissible in other Offices at the usual rates of premium, owing to their deteriorated health or tendency to some disease. The Actuary of the Office referred to, in a paper on the practice and experience of his Company, states that “ in the absence of any trustworthy data which might serve as a guide, the projector of the Company sought to accomplish with safety the object he had in view, by having on his Board of Directors Medical men conversant with particular kinds of disease.” It is then an acknowledged fact, that the first Office who assured Diseased and Invalid Lives had no data to guide them in estimating the increased risk and the corresponding extra premium for such cases. It continues to be a fact, that all the Offices who are now assuring lives more or less diseased have no data to guide them to the