In the following remarks I have attempted to approach my subject (necessarily in a somewhat random fashion) from a slightly different angle from that of Clarke's text-book. It must be understood that any opinions expressed are personal ones, and have no official authority.

All insurance has as its basic conception the pooling of risks, but whereas ordinary insurance is an individual contract, and steps are taken to ensure that the insured person is a reasonably healthy life when the policy is effected, social insurance brings under its cover the whole population of a country, or at any rate some more or less well-defined section of the population, and its concern is that the bad lives or heavy risks should gain protection equally with the healthy lives and lighter risks.