The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-03-25 00:00:00

SCOTTISH PROVIDENT INSTITUTION

MUTUAL LIFE ASSURANCE.

THE THIRTEENTH ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING of this SOCIETY was held in the WATERLOO
Rooms, Edinburgh, on WEDNESDAY, the 19th February.
JOHN HUNTER, Esq., Auditor of the Court of Sessions, the
Senior Director, being called to the chair, said,—The Directors
have the greatest satisfaction in again meeting with their con-
stituents. Nothing is so pleasant to report as good tidings.
On no former occasion have the Directors had anything to ex-
press but congratulations; and the present meeting forms no
exception in that respect. The prosperity of the Institution
has steadily and raphily increased. The business reported at
our last meeting was the largest we bad ever had, and we have
now to report a still more successful year. We have attained
a position which, I believe, was never reached by any similar
society in so short a space of time. But lam only forestalling
Mr. Oliphant, who, as Convener of the Committee, will now
bring up the Report.
Mr. WILLIAM OLIPHANT, Publisher, laid on the table_the
Report from the Directors. After referring in terms-of con-
gratulation to the different topics which it embra ;he said,—
I will no further anticipate the Report now ut to be read;
but, having been a Member of this Institu • n from its forma-
tion, and having had thehonour of being, office-bearer during
the last eight years, first as Auditor,,and afterwards as Direc-
tor, and having consequently haWthe best opportunities of
studying. its principles, and of -coming acquainted with the
manner in which these have b n carried into practice. I may
perhaps be permitted, now at lam about to retire from your
service, to offer a remark two on its leading features, and on
the progress it hasmad uring the period I have been officially
connected with it.

On the first of the topics it is scarcely needful to enlarge,
as the principles o he society have been already so amply and
admirably illustr ed in the published proceedings of our van-
ous annual mee ngs. Whether I look at the moderate, though
fully adequate cafe of our premiums, which enable the assurer
at once to receive the largest benefit at the least expense, and
thus, in the event of his early death, to obtain for his family a
larger and definite sum, instead of the uncertain amount under
the operation of the usual bonus system : or at the equitable
mode of adjustment under which the surplus which shall ac-
crue, (and this is already known to be very considerable,) will
be ultimately apportioned among those parties by whom it has
been chiefly created, I am more and more convinced of the
soundness and equity of the basis upon which this society was
founded. It may be alleged that our principles of division par-
take of the nature of a tontine. But this, in the modified sense
in which it is true, so far from a blemish, I rather look upon as
an advantage. To use the words of the learned Professor who pre-
sided at our first Annual Meeting— 'This peculiarity will recom-
mend this Institution to young i ves, and prove of no disadvantage
in any case, more especially when it is recollected how prone we
are all to reckon on longevity, and how truly the poet says—

• All men count all men mortal but themselves.'
Longevity has, in this office, its fair and legitimate influence ;
and probably the plan here adopted is the most judiciousw•hich
has ever yet been suggested for the division of the profits.
Among its other advantages, it tends to secure for this Institu-
tion a select class of contr butors, and to keep back those who
suspect or know that they have latent seeds of disease, by hold-
ing out its chief advantages to those veterans whose constitu-
tiona► qualities render them the most desirable members of
such institutions."

There is only one point of general character to which I would
particularly advert. I should have thought it scarcely admitted
of doubt that a Mutual Office, in which the whole profits belong
to the Members, must be more beneficial to assurers than any

modification of the Proprietary system, i
those profits belongs to other parties. Yet
persons who were under a misapprehension on th

which a portion (

have met with

Who have alleged that Mutu:

Assurances Societ

more than Proprietary Companies, divide their whole pr.ofiti,
their constitution requiring that, out of these, they shall re-
serve a certain proportion to form a guaranteefund ; and that,
to that extent, the profits are withheld from the contributors.
Now, this allegation is founded upon a very palpable fallacy.
It is true that, in the Mutual Office, a reserve is made at each
investigation ; but the sum so reserved falls into the fund for
division at the next palod of investigation. Observe the dif-
ferent results of the process in a Mutual and in a Proprietary
Office. Suppose that, at a first investigation, the profits of each
amount to Anoo,ooo, and that in each a reserve of a fourth is
made. In the Mutual Office the sum of '25.100 is then with-
held, but it is added to the surplus divisable at the second pe-

riod of investigation. The new reserve then made is, in like
manner, divided at the third, and so on. The amount of the

reerve fund, indeed, may go on ii.creasing, with the increase
of the profits, and so as to bear a proportion to th
engagements; but it is only at the first invest

on that

1 say literally, for if the progress of the first £25,000 is
it will be found that, within a very few of these recurr
Hods, it is almost wholly apportioned among the assure

the first reserveis for ever withdrawn from the assured, and so
the sums reserved at the second and subsequent investigatior
the whole with the accumulated interest going to swell
of the proprietors, as compensation for au alleged t
dnoc nnt

ally exist, and being thus entirely lost to the ass
Mr. Oliphant then read a tabular statement, contra
present state of the Society with its position tire y(
when he entered on office as Director, and which sho
in that period the business had greatly more than double(
There was then read the following
REPORT BY THE DIRECTORS:

red tlia

The Directors had the satisfaction of reporting to last Ge-
neral Meeting Ike largest amount of business since the forma-
tion of the socidty. That increase was perhaps in part at tri-
butable to theprevalence of theepidemic in 1849, which directed
more than usual attention to Life Assurance. It is therefore

with peculiar

fication that the 1
increase nn the hi.