Description: This is an editorial warning about the escalating costs of Medicare as outlined in the 1983 Annual Report of The Board of Trustees of The Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. The editorial ends with a question asking what the actuarial profession, and its members individually, ought to be doing that they aren’t already doing?

Description: This article describes the “Arithmeter”, invented by Elizur Wright, to expedite the calculations made necessary by the legislation that he himself had drafted that required the Massachusetts Insurance Department to compute net level premium reserves on all policies in force. One of the few Arithmeters in existence was donated to, and is now in the possession of, the SOA.

Description: In January 1936, William Phillips, a London actuary, presented a paper to the Institute in which he recommended a methodology to allow life insurance companies to automate their actuarial calculations. This article discusses Phillps' work in this area.

Description: A debate among industry giants of whether the life insurance industry in 1977 is entering a period of changes that will affect business in the most fundamental way or whether it's just experiencing normal trials and tribulations.