Lecture III. Accident Insurance

Abstract

Accident Insurance is of comparatively recent growth. In 1880 there were only ten accident insurance offices in the United Kingdom, and the business was chiefly in the hands of one company, the Railway Passengers Assurance Company. Since then the premium income for accident insurance has been trebled, and a large number of new companies, such as the Scottish Employers, and the Northern Accident Company, have been established, in consequence, mainly, of the great impetus given to the business of accident insurance by the passing of the Employers' Liability Act of 1880. Various changes have been introduced into accident policies during this period, in the direction chiefly of increased compensation without additional premium. In 1850, the Accidental Death Insurance Company introduced policies covering temporary disablement in addition to the ordinary fatal risks. The Scottish Life Assurance Company was the first to make the full sum insured payable in the case of permanent total disablement as well as in the case of death, and the half of the sum insured where the disablement was permanent but only partial. Under a system recently introduced by the Scottish Accident Insurance Company, the compensation in the latter case takes the form of a pension for life. When the disablement is not permanent, it is usual to allow so much a week till a cure is effected, the period being restricted in all cases to twenty-six weeks for any one accident.