CHAPTER IV

LEVEL PREMIUM COMPANIES

THE first form of life insurance was assessment. Its beginnings are ancient, perhaps even going back to the early Greek days, in the funeral benefits paid in certain guilds. Notwithstanding the defects of plan, such guilds have been able to maintain themselves for long periods, for two reasons, one that they offered other important and exclusive advantages as do trade unions, for instance, and the other that the benefits and the payments were so small that the want of equity in the contributions did not cause anybody through self-interest to quit the enter-prise, as would have been the case, had the disproportionate costs and benefits been on a larger scale.

Likewise, the first attempt at whole life insurance was on the assessment plan. A company, called "The Amicable Corporation," was chartered in London in 1705, which conducted its business on the following basis, viz.: Members were received up to 45 years of age. Each paid

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