Leases for lives : life contingent contracts and the emergence of actuarial science in eighteenth-century England / David R. Bellhouse, University of Western Ontario.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bellhouse, D. R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life insurance--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Life insurance.

Actuarial science--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Actuarial science.

History.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xii, 261 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Many historians of insurance have commented on the disconnect between the rise of English life insurance companies in the early eighteenth century and the mathematics behind the sound pricing of life insurance products that was developed at about the same time. Insurance and annuity promoters typically ignored this mathematical work. Bellhouse explores this issue and shows that the early mathematical work was not motivated by insurance but instead by the fair valuation of life contingent contracts related to property. Even the work of the mathematician James Dodson in the creation of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, offering sound actuarially based premiums, did not change the industry in any significant way. The tipping point was a crisis in 1770 in which the philosopher and mathematician Richard Price, as well as other mathematicians, showed that a dozen or more recently formed annuity societies could not meet their financial obligations and were inviable.

Contents:

Introduction

Mathematics and property in the seventeenth century

Edmond Halley's life table

Halley's impact or lack of it

De Moivre and his early influence

Mathematicians as consultants

Mathematicians and early life insurance companies

The annuity bubble of the 1760s and 70s

The after shocks of the bubble on life annuities

Developments in the life insurance industry in the later eighteenth century

A return to roots

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781107111769

1107111765

OCLC:

982092199