In the year 1823 a plan was projected, by the late Dr. George Pinckard, for establishing an Assurance Office which should undertake, as its leading feature, to grant policies on lives deviating so much from the common standard of health as to render them wholly inadmissible at any Office then existing. In pursuance of this plan, the Clerical, Medical, and General Life Assurance Office was established early in 1824.