Premiums and Reserves of the Swiss Accident Insurance

Recent publications of the Swiss Accident Insurance Institution of Lucerne* furnish an exceptionally rich material for studying the technical methods followed in the administration of the compulsory industrial accident insurance law of Switzerland. The United States is indebted to European countries in a peculiar degree for the various systems of work accident insurance which have been established in the several states, and considerable has been written in this country concerning the European systems of social insurance. Some European statistics have also been available on this side of the Atlantic, but their use has been very limited-- partly by reason of the lack of a more precise knowledge of European practices in the computation of premiums and reserves. The publications of the Swiss government, above referred to, are notable in that they supply a clear and unambiguous exposition of those technical methods which are of most immediate interest to underwriters and actuaries. The present Swiss law may be taken to represent the latest and possibly most enlightened European thought upon the subject of compensation for industrial accidents and together with the technical methods developed or followed by the Swiss actuaries constitutes a system which may fairly be considered to reflect the accumulated wisdom of thirty years' experience in furnishing work-accident indemnity. As such it deserves the closest attention of American students.