1.1. The principal field of work in which the actuary is engaged is still that of life assurance, and over the years the tremendous growth of life companies has necessitated the individual actuary specializing in one or other of the various branches of life assurance work. In this paper, the authors, each of whom is intimately concerned with the formation of a new life assurance organization, seek to examine many of the elements affecting a new office, and hope by so doing to present the problems as a whole rather than as the separate compartments in which many practising actuaries find themselves.