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American Insurance Union (1926)
Part
of the American Term Life Insurance History Project
Term Life Insurance
The Fraternal American Table
For many years actuarial tables have been prepared in
^^^^ this country and in Europe, and today there are
1^ p^. tables known as the Actuaries' Table, The American
^ y^^ Experience Table, The Fraternal American Table,
ta^eaat^j rp^g institute of Actuaries' Table, The National Fra-
ternal Congress Table, The American Men Table,
The Canada Life Table, and others. The subject of an actual ex-
perience rather than a theoretical experience table has been dis-
cussed for the last ten years in the national conventions of the
Insurance Commissioners and in the many insurance publica-
tions, and particularly in the meetings of the actuarial associa-
tions. These discussions focused to some extent in the meeting
of the Insurance Commissioners in September, 1918, at Denver,
at which convention a committee which had had the subject
under consideration for some time, reported as follows:
"The last preceding report of this committee was that sub-
mitted to the Convention at its meeting held in Des Moines in
April, 1917. Such report appears in the Proceedings of that
Convention at page 90.
The new mortality investigation is rapidly nearing com-
pletion and the report of the committee representing the Actua-
rial Society of America and the American Institute of Actuaries
will shortly be available in published form.
The investigation comprises experience in the United States
and Canada of American and Canadian companies during the
years 1900 to 1915, inclusive, on policies issued from 1843 to
1914, inclusive. The official report goes into the history of the
movement which led to the new investigation and discusses argu-
ments for and against the adoption of the new mortality tables
in lieu of the American Experience Table. It then goes on to
describe the data selected for study and the subsidiary investi-
gations made of particular groups of risks, both men and women,
according to habitat and plan of insurance.
The magnitude of the investigation may be gleaned from the
amount of insurance exposed to risk, which is over $29,600,000,-
000 (of which more than $26,000,000,000 represents policies is-
sued on the lives of American men) and from the aggregate
death claims which enter into the experience exceeding $477,-
000,000.
In general it may be said that the investigation shows an
improvement in mortality at ages below forty-five, while above
that age the rates of mortality approximate, and at times exceed,
those shown by the American Experience Table.
In view of the imminence of the publication of the Actuarial
report, your committee believes that it would be inappropriate
to make further reference at this time to the specific features
of the new mortality investigation.
Respectfully submitted,
HCOMMITTEE ON NEW MORTALITY INVESTIGATION
By H. Pierson Hammond,
Actuary Connecticut Insurance Department.
fGeorge W. Smith,
Actuary Massachusetts Insurance Department.
R. E. Ankers,
Actuary Virginia Insurance Department.
H. E. Ryan, Chairman,
Actuary New York Insurance Department."
From time to time this matter has been on the minds of in-
surance students and came prominently before the insurance
world at the National Convention of the Insurance Commis-
sioners held in San Antonio, Texas, in September, 1925, where
a most vigorous and illuminating presentation of the whole sub-
ject was made by Hon. William M. Corcoran, Actuary of the
Insurance Department of Connecticut, a recognized actuary of
the highest standing, in which report (See Page 13) it will
be observed he reports approval of the insurance department of
New York, in saying that the American Experience Table was -
obsolete, and Mr. Corcoran's entire paper shows it to be obsolete
in the facts and figures which he presents in support of the new
table which is called the American Men Table.
Long before Mr. Corcoran's paper was read at San Antonio,
George Dyre Eldridge of Boston, the late David Parks Fackler
and his son, Edward, both of New York City, Hon. Sidney H.
Pipe, the distinguished Canadian Actuary, of Toronto, Canada
were at work and were proclaiming that the American Experi-
ence Table was obsolete and that the new table prepared in 1912
by Fackler and Fackler, known as the Fraternal American Table,
is the up-to-date table and is the best and truest table in exist-
ence for Fraternal Risks, showing as it does at every age a close
parallelism with the actual death rate and experience of the in-
sured risks of the United States and Canada. Mr. Corcoran's
clean cut analysis of the situation in support of the American
Men Table is substantially a confirmation of what Mr. Eldridge,
the Facklers and Mr. Pipe have advocated for years. A signifi-
cant fact in support of the Fraternal American Table is the
action of the San Antonio Convention in receiving Mr. Cor-
coran's paper with so much favor as to appoint a committee of
five actuaries to consider Mr. Corcoran's advocacy of the Ameri-
can Men Table and to recommend a new table for the commis-
sioners' consideration at the next. meeting.
JThe next meeting, which occurred at Chicago within three
months of the San Antonio convention came so shortly after the
other that the committee reported "Progress" and asked leave
for further time.
Meanwhile, it is important that those who desire to be well
informed and who really wish to be in possession of all the facts
should read Mr. Corcoran's paper and the paper presented by
Mr. Edward Fackler to the mid-winter session of the Fraternal
Actuarial Association held at Chicago at the Hotel Sherman on
the 23rd day of February, 1926; also the able and convincing ad-
dresses of Mr. Eldridge and Mr. Pipe supporting Mr. Fackler
and in further demonstration that Mr. Fackler and his father
as early as 1912 had given to the world the Fraternal American
Table, which at this time is practically demonstrated to be the
truest and best experience table of any so far formulated for the
life insurance risks of the United States and Canada. All of
these papers and addresses are printed herein.
The American Insurance Union and the Knights of Colum-
bus, with their large experience covering a third of a century,
have found by actual experience the Fraternal American Table
to be worthy of the highest confidence. It stands as a monu-
ment to the actuarial wisdom and reliability of David Parks
Fackler, Edward B. Fackler, George Dyre Eldridge and Sidney
H. Pipe.
Read these papers in full in order that you may easily in-
form yourself and have the full value and benefit of the lifetime
work of the best known and ablest actuaries of the day.
The American Insurance Union presents this booklet to you
with their compliments.
Columbus, Ohio, July 26th, 1926. National President.
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