Description: This session from the 1976 SOA Fall Meeting is about the comparison of social security systems in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the relationship between social security and private pension plans, and the contrast of Canadian and European governmental medical insurance programs to the continuing controversy in the United States over government health insurance.

Description: This article is a summary of a paper called Valuation of Final-Salary Pension Schemes by R. B. Colbran, F.I.A. submitted to the Institute of Actuaries in London last April. It includes a review of major ways in which United Kingdom and North American actuaries differ in their approaches of valuing these plans.