Concept    From 1762 

scientific life assurance

Categories: Commerce, Science

Equitable Life, the world's oldest mutual insurer, started business in 1762 in the parsonage of St Nicholas Acons in Nicholas Lane. It pioneered scientific life assurance by basing premiums on age and mortality rates.

Elsewhere Dr Richard Price (1723 - 1791) is credited with having founded actuarial science.  He was also the radical minister at the Dissenters' church on Newington Green (inside which there is a plaque) where he met and influenced Mary Wollstonecraft, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestley, etc.  Roberta Wedge, author of the blog A Vindication of the Rights of Mary, offered to see if there was a connection between Price and the parsonage “where scientific life assurance began in 1762”.   Roberta found in The Actuarial Profession reference to a report Price produced in 1774, “one of the key documents in the history of actuarial science”.  This report was addressed to the Society’s directors.  She also discovered a readable history, as a slideshow with lecturer's notes, which says Price was a consultant to the Society from 1770 onwards. The Society's first actuary was appointed on the recommendation of Price; William Morgan, who put his stamp on the organisation while serving from 1775 to 1830, was Price's nephew. 

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
scientific life assurance

Commemorated ati

St Nicholas Acons parsonage

Site of the Parsonage of St Nicholas Acons where scientific life assurance be...

Read More

Other Subjects

Alexander Hay

Alexander Hay

Founded Hay's Wharf in 1651.

Person, Commerce

1 memorial
Keith Nigel Loudoun-Shand, OBE, TD

Keith Nigel Loudoun-Shand, OBE, TD

He is shown as Keith Loudoun-Shand on the Tea Industry plaque on Sir John Lyon House, 8 High Timber Street, London, EC4. Tea broker. Major in the Queen's Royal Rifles, awarded the OBE in 1965. Sour...

Person, Armed Forces, Commerce, Food & Drink

1 memorial
Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch

From their website: "Merrill Lynch is one of the world’s premier providers of wealth management, securities trading and sales, corporate finance and investment banking services."

Group, Commerce

1 memorial
W. H. Fowler

W. H. Fowler

Director of the Brilliant Sign Company in 1938.

Person, Commerce, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
The Establishment Club

The Establishment Club

Peter Cook said this was modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". Lenny Bruce, Barry Humphries, ...

Group, Commerce, Community / Clubs, Humour

1 memorial