Life Assurance in France

Abstract

There is a prevalent but erroneous idea entertained on this side of the Straits of Dover, that the business of the French life assurance companies is mainly composed of annuities and endowments, with but very little of life assurance properly so called. The truth lies much the other way. Indeed, the amount of business transacted in the assurance of human life, by the few French companies that exist—that is to say, for sums payable in the event of death—reaches a yearly aggregate of several millions of pounds sterling. The most successful French company, which at the same time is the oldest, issued, in the year 1874, whole life assurance policies for very nearly £2,000,000 sterling in that class of assurance alone, and in France alone—an amount that exceeds anything yet achieved by any English company whatever, taking, altogether, its business from Great Britain, the Colonies, and India.