Investing in Life: Insurance in Antebellum America

Appendix

a p p e n d i  table a.1. Early American Life Insurance Companies, 1759–1843 Year Year Insurance in Company chartered terminated force 1840 ($) Corp. for the Relief of Poor and Distressed 1759 continued negligible Widows and Children of Presbyterian into 20th Ministers (Presbyterian Ministers Fund) century Corporation for the Relief of the Widows and 1769 continued negligible Children of Clergymen in the Communion into 20th of the Church of England in America century (Episcopal Ministers Fund) Insurance Company of the State of Pennsyl- 1794 1798 vania Insurance Company of North America, PA 1794 1798 United Insurance Company, NY 1798 1802 New York Insurance Company 1798 1802 Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on 1812 1872* 691,000 Lives and Granting Annuities New York Mechanics Life and Fire Insurance 1812 1813 Company Dutchess County Fire, Marine and Life In- 1814 1818 surance Company, NY Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance 1818 1867* 342,000 Company Union Insurance Company, NY 1818 1840 Aetna Insurance Company (mainly fire in- 1820 1853 negligible surance; separate life company chartered in 1853) Farmers Loan and Trust Company, NY 1822 1843 unknown Baltimore Life Insurance Company 1830 1867 750,000 (est.) New York Life Insurance and Trust Company 1830 1865* 2,880,000 Lawrenceburg Insurance Company 1832 1836 Mississippi Insurance Company 1833 1837 Protection Insurance Company, Mississippi 1833 1837 (continued ) table a.1. (continued ) Year Year Insurance in Company chartered terminated force 1840 ($) Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company (life 1834 1857 54,000 policies appear to have been reinsured with New York Life and Trust in the late 1840s) American Life Insurance and Trust Company, 1834 1840 Baltimore, MD New England Mutual Life Insurance Com- 1835 continued 0 pany, MA (did not begin issuing policies into 20th until 1844) century Ocean Mutual Insurance Company, LA 1835 1839 Southern Life and Trust Insurance Company, 1836 1840 AL Girard Life Insurance, Annuity and Trust 1836 1894 723,000 Company, PA Missouri Life and Trust Insurance Company 1837 1841 negligible Missouri Mutual Insurance Company 1837 1841 negligible Globe Life Insurance, Trust and Annuity 1837 1857 negligible Company, PA Odd Fellow Life Insurance and Trust 1840 1857 negligible Company, PA National Insurance Company of Pennsylvania 1841 1852 Nautilus Insurance Company (did not begin 1841 continued issuing policies until 1845; renamed New into 20th York Life Insurance Company in 1849) century Mutual Life Insurance Company of New 1842 continued York into 20th century Sources: J. Owen Stalson, Marketing Life Insurance: Its History in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942), 784–85; and Policy Books, Baltimore Life Insurance Collection, MS 175, H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Maryland Historical Society. *Date company ceased writing life insurance; continued operation as a trust company. 302 Appendix table a.2. Years of Life Expectancy British tables of life expectancy American tables of life expectancy British Board of Episcopal Northampton Carlisle government Equitable Wigglesworth Health Church Age (1783) (1815) (1829) (1829) (1789) (1806) (c. 1814) Birth 25.2 25.2 28.2 10 39.8 48.8 39.2 34.6 37.1 20 33.4 41.5 41.2 41.7 34.2 27 30.6 30 28.3 34.3 35.4 34.3 30.2 21.5 25.5 40 23.1 27.6 29.1 27.4 26 19.2 21.4 50 18 21.1 22.3 20.4 21.2 16.8 17.3 60 13.2 14.3 15.9 13.9 15.4 13.7 13.8 70 8.6 9.2 10.1 9.8 9.4 80 4.8 5.5 5.9 7 6 90 2.4 3.3 3.7 4.7 Sources: Steven Haberman and Trevor A. Sibbett, eds., History of Actuarial Science, vol. 1. (London: William Pickering, 1995), introduction ; Richard Price, Observations on Reversionary Payments; on Schemes for providing Annuities for Widows, and for Persons in Old Age; on the Method of calculating the values of Assurances on Lives, 4th ed. (London: T. Cadell, 1783), in Haberman and Sibbett, vol. 2; Joshua Milne, A Treatise on the Valuation of Annuities and Assurances on Lives and Survivorships; on the Construction of Tables of Mortality; and on the Probabilities and Expectations of Life (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815), in Haberman and Sibbett, vol. 2, 79–118; Edward Wigglesworth, “A Table shewing Probability of the Duration, the Decrement, and the Expectation of Life, in the States of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, formed...