Supervision of Insurance Companies in the United Kingdom is based on the principle of ‘freedom with publicity’. For general insurance, publicity is provided through the returns required by the Insurance Companies (Accounts and Forms) Regulations 1968 (S.I. No. 1408) which was issued under the terms of the Companies Act 1967. If the principle is to operate successfully the returns must be scrutinized carefully if not by prospective and existing policyholders and stockholders then by those representing their interests, be they government departments, insurance brokers, stockbrokers, statisticians, accountants or actuaries. The nature of the information to be collected, as well as its presentation and interpretation requires special skills and experience. An actuarial training provides these skills and it is appropriate, therefore, that the returns should be discussed at a meeting of the Institute.

Staple Inn and the Patent Office are only separated by the width of a garden, and it might be wondered why none of the many ingenious schemes of insurance has ever been protected by patenting it. Such protection of an idea should be impossible, as will be explained later, but in 1778 one John Knox ‘Of Richmond in the County of Surry, Gentleman’ took the first step towards such a patent by petitioning King George III ‘that with great assiduity, art and pains and after many laborious calculations and at a considerable expence’ he had invented ‘A Plan, Different to any before that Time Discovered, for Assurance on Lives from Ten to Eighty Years of Age, upon a Twofold Beneficial Principle, Making a certain provision as well for Subscribers or their Representatives upon the Death of the Person on whose Life Assurance should be made within the Term Assured for, as also by Means of a Reserved Capital for the Surviving Subscribers whose Nominees should be Living at the Expiration of such Term….’