A History of British Actuarial Thought

In the first book of its kind, Craig Turnbull traces the development and implementation of actuarial ideas, from the conception of Equitable Life in the mid-18th century to the start of the 21st century. This book analyses the historical development of British actuarial thought in each of its three main practice areas of life assurance, pensions and general insurance.

It discusses how new actuarial approaches were developed within each practice area, and how these emerging ideas interacted with each other and were often driven by common external factors such as shocks in the economic environment, new intellectual ideas from academia and developments in technology.

Given that Irish actuarial thought has historically had very close links to its British counterpart we think this interesting subject will be of interest to many members of the Society across the various practice areas.

Craig’s talk will cover a number of topics from the book such as:

- Illiquid asset investing in late 19th century British life offices

- The actuarial development and application of market risk management techniques such as immunization and dynamic asset allocation in the 1950s

- The development of risk-based capital modelling and its application to cash maturity guarantees and GAOs in the latter twentieth century