Life insurance and mortality tables
Seguro de vida y tablas de mortalidad
- Date
- 1583 (póliza) / 1693 (tabla de Halley) / 1706 (Amicable) · confidence high
- Place
- London, England
- Credited to
- William Gybbons's policy (1583); John Graunt (1662) and Edmund Halley (1693, the Breslau table); the Amicable Society (1706); the Equitable (1762)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A contract that paid a sum on the death of the insured, turned into a rational business by the mortality tables of Graunt and Halley and by probability theory. Actuarial science is born.
What it led to
- Demographic statistics and political arithmetic
- Applied probability theory (Bernoulli, De Moivre)
- A private welfare state: pensions, widows' benefits and annuities
- Lloyd's and organised marine insurance (1688)
Built on
- Marine insurance1347
- Probability theory (Pascal-Fermat, 1654; Huygens, 1657)
- London Bills of Mortality
Made possible
- Variolation (smallpox inoculation)1721
- Actuarial science (Equitable, 1762)
- Demographic statistics
- Pension funds