An investigation into the effects of family and personal history upon assurance risks has long been desired by Actuaries, but hitherto in this country the material at their disposal has not been sufficient in volume to admit of analytical treatment. The only attempt the Institute as a body has made to deal with this subject is in the old Institute experience, which contains the records of 11,146 rated-up lives, in which all kinds of risks are combined without any attempt at classification.

In the hope that this long-felt want might, to some extent, be met, an investigation was projected into the experience of a large number of lives assured in the Ordinary Branch of the Prudential Assurance Company whose family or personal history showed some marked peculiarity, by means of which they could be separated into more or less well-defined classes. The actual work of compiling the necessary data was commenced in 1903, and by the courteous permission and public-spirited action of the Directors we have now the pleasure of placing the main results of that investigation before the Institute. No claim is made in this Paper either to exhaustive analysis or to complete solution of the numerous and important problems that arise in practice, but it is thought that, at least, the results may form a useful aid to the Actuary in arriving at those conclusions which necessarily have to be formed—mainly from a priori reasoning—when risks come before him for adjudication.