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. 

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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...

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Other Subjects

Business Design Centre

Business Design Centre

An exhibition venue and conference centre with showrooms and offices, in Upper Street Islington. The Business Design Centre is a Grade II listed building, which was originally opened, on Liverpool...

Group, Commerce, Craft / Design

1 memorial
First pub outside Ireland to have bottled Guinness

First pub outside Ireland to have bottled Guinness

The Tipperary pub, Fleet Street, was the first pub outside Ireland to have bottled Guinness and later draft.

Concept, Commerce, Food & Drink

1 memorial
Burmantofts

Burmantofts

Manufacturers of ceramic pipes and construction materials, named after the Burmantofts district of Leeds. The business began when fire clay was discovered in a coal mine owned by William Wilcox and...

Group, Commerce

1 memorial
William Bethell

William Bethell

Worked for the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. Was Assistant Manager of the Abbey Wood branch in June 1912. Probably a cousin of the RACS architect Frank Bethell.

Person, Commerce, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
William Ashworth

William Ashworth

Worked for the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. Was on the building committee for the Abbey Wood branch in 1912.

Person, Commerce, Politics & Administration

1 memorial