The transaction by British offices of life assurance business outside the United Kingdom brings with it problems which have been discussed by W. F. Gardner in his paper to the Institute on ‘Some considerations affecting the transaction of overseas life business’ (J.I.A.66, 198) and by C. D. Sharp in his paper on ‘British life assurance overseas’ (J.S.S.9, 2). These papers dealt with the principles to be observed and the practice to be followed in writing life business overseas having regard, inter alia, to local insurance laws. My intention is to consider the laws themselves, to point out some of the differences between them, and to consider to what extent they are consistent with actuarial principles.

To keep the subject within practical limits I shall confine myself to Ordinary branch business in the Commonwealth and Egypt. Furthermore, I shall not consider laws which directly control the relationship between insurer and insured, and between insurer and field staff.

‘Extending the scope of the profession’ is such a well-worn cliché that one could define the wider field effectively, if ungrammatically, as the place professional scope extends or can extend into.

F. A. A. Menzler raised the matter to the level of public importance at the Annual General Meeting of the Institute in 1924, exercising the Fellow's democratic right of intervention. At the invitation of the Council, he developed his ideas in a paper submitted to a Special General Meeting of members on 26 October 1925. He drew attention to the growing importance and recognition of statistics as a tool of government and of management. He claimed that the actuary was ipso facto a trained statistician, and that actuaries might reasonably expect to fill the increasing number of statistical posts then becoming available. Menzler also showed that the membership of the Institute had grown substantially in numbers during the preceding twenty years.

By the courtesy of the editors, I submit some remarks which time did not permit me to utter during the discussion on Mr Spratling's, ‘paper.

At the meeting a member asked why should an actuary engaged in exercising his profession in a Life Office seek employment in the wide open spaces? The answer is, of course, that if his employment provides full contentment—as well as reasonable prospects—there is no earthly reason why he should be adventurous unless, of course, he is inclined that way. For it is an adventure to take on a job in an entirely new and unfamiliar environment, especially in industry, where the tendency is not to bother much about your academic or professional diplomas, and the test is rather what you can contribute to the work and prosperity of the firm.

Now what is it that we can contribute? It takes a good man to stand up to our training and examinations and come through unscathed.

In a previous paper (J.S.S.9, 105) the present writer investigated the effect upon pension fund contribution rates of a change in the salary scale. A further note (J.S.S.10, 47) discussed the effect of a change in the rate of interest. The present note is concerned with the variation in contribution rates with varying entry age, the actuarial bases remaining constant. The note takes account only of the contribution in respect of the pension benefit and disregards any additional contribution required to provide a benefit payable on death or withdrawal.

As before, we suppose that a single pension age, M, independent of entry age, sufficiently allows for normal, late and early retirements (if any) and that the pension is 100 k% of pensionable salary for each year of service.

In this note, we consider a problem and its implication. The problem is the control of the flow of new business in a portfolio in a certain type of policy. Supposing we know in advance what the investment implications of a certain trend of reserves will be so that we can decide a programme of development of the fund purely from investment consideration. If the flow of new business is ‘controllable’, e.g. by the amount of advertising, commission, and reward to the selling staff allowed from time to time, what volume of new business is required in order to build up to a predetermined reserve pattern? In solving this problem, we will use a mathematical integral employed in electricity, physics, chemistry and other fields. This is so fundamental in other fields that perhaps it will solve many more of our problems.

In this note, emphasis is given to the amount of insurance in force because that is customarily done in the United States.