The Reorganisation of Friendly Societies in Connection with the National Insurance Act.

Abstract

All the larger Friendly Societies and many of the smaller ones have organised separate sections for administering the benefits of the Act to their Members and to others insured under the Act. In some Societies this course was opposed on the ground that the admission of a new class of lives might lead to an unfavourable sickness experience in the State Section, and that unfavourable results in that Section might react on the prosperity of the voluntary side of the Society. But the consideration which outweighed all others with the majority of Members was that the Voluntary Sections of Societies would in future be largely recruited from their State Sections, and that any Society which did not organise a State Section would be likely to die out from lack of new Members—a prospect very distasteful to Members of Friendly Societies, even though it might not involve any pecuniary loss to them.