The vitality displayed by the English Friendly Societies in face of the competition of the compulsory system of National Health Insurance is such as to justify the allocation to the societies of a reasonable part of the time which the Institute devotes to the study of problems of professional interest; and their claim for a share of our attention is strengthened by the fact that the day of the unqualified “valuer” has nearly passed, and that the work of advising the societies on the actuarial aspects of their relatively complex undertakings is now almost everywhere entrusted to Fellows of the Institute or of the Faculty.

A Net Premium Valuation is made when the sums assured and net premiums are valued at a given rate of interest and by a given table of mortality, and the net premiums are calculated at the same rate of interest and by the same table of mortality. Such a valuation leads to a reserve that starts with the net premium and ultimately reaches the sum assured for whole life assurances and endowment assurances; it cannot produce negative values unless the annuity value increases with the age, a case with which we are not concerned in this paper.