In a paper on Large-scale Electronic Digital Computing Machines read before the Institute in 1953 (J.I.A. 79, 274) R. L. Michaelson drew the attention of actuaries to the possibilities which existed in a life office for the use of a large-scale electronic digital computer (referred to hereafter as a ‘computer’). Both the paper itself and the discussion which followed emphasized the need for a detailed investigation of the problems involved from the points of view of the life office and the manufacturer.

2. The author of this paper has been privileged to undertake, in close cooperation with a large manufacturer of computers in this country, a detailed investigation of possible life-office organization based on a computer. This paper sets down some of the results of this investigation with particular reference to life offices transacting ordinary as distinct from industrial life assurance.

Some combinations of ideas seem strange and unfamiliar. Life assurances with participation in profits—what could be more natural? But annuities with participation in profits?—the association of such discrepant ideas gives rise to all manner of objections in our minds.