The paper by Messrs Abbott, Clarke and Treen on “Some Financial Aspects of a General Insurance Company”, submitted recently at a meeting of the Institute, dealt at some length with the accounts of an insurance office and the analysis thereof.

A reinsurance office operating in the London reinsurance market differs in so many ways and tends to be so specialized that many different aspects of analysis arise and a somewhat altered approach is essential. Lest it be thought that the area of operations under consideration is too small to warrant much attention by actuaries, let it be pointed out that recent figures completed by the B.I.A. and by Lloyd's would seem to indicate that the reinsurance offices, once Lloyd's itself and the Home–Foreign departments of the large direct-writing insurance office are included, in all of which administration is carried out in the United Kingdom, involves an annual premium income very roughly equal to that of all direct general insurance business written in the U.K. and each is roughly equal to the U.K. premium income of the life offices.