Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2016
That great numbers of His Majesty's subjects, whose subsistence principally depends on the salaries, stipends, and other incomes payable to them, during their natural lives, or on the profits arising from their several trades, occupation, labour, and industry, are very desirous of entering into a society for insuring the lives of each other, in order to extend after their decease the benefit of their present incomes to their families and relations, who may otherwise be reduced to extreme poverty and distress, by the premature death of their several husbands, fathers and friends, which humane intention the petitioners humbly apprehend cannot be effectually carried into execution without His Majesty's royal authority to incorporate them for that purpose.
This is the preamble to the petition presented to the Secretary of State's office of the British Parliament in April 1757 by the promoters of ‘The Corporation for Equitable Assurances on Lives’, the seed from which modern life insurance has sprung. It is undoubtedly the clearest statement made as to the purpose and justification of the life insurance industry and stands as a challenge to those engaged in it.