FOR INSURANCE MEN
For the insurance man, whether veteran or tyro, the new ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA has much of value and importance, _and it has it in quickly
available form so that the desired information may be readily found_,
whether the experienced student wants an authoritative statement on a
difficult point, or the beginner wishes an outline course of the
subject. This availability, whether for the expert or the novice, is
secured by the Index (the 29th volume), which guides the reader
immediately to desired information, if he does not find it in the
alphabetically arranged articles in the body of the book upon first
turning up the article in which he expects the subject to be treated.
To be more concrete—if you want to know something about insurance, turn
first to the article INSURANCE in Volume 14, beginning on p. 656. You
find an elaborate article, which would occupy about 75 pages if printed
in type and on a page like this Guide.
_In other encyclopaedias_ you would have no clue to the whereabouts of
any information about insurance except what would be given in the
article INSURANCE or in articles to which it might refer you in that
article. For anything else you would have to guess how the editor’s mind
had worked to find where in the book he had put other information about
insurance; and to guess how each contributor’s mental processes have
been related to his interest in insurance so that you might know whether
in some article, on a topic apparently not related to insurance at all,
the contributor had put in some interesting and important fact about
insurance.
But in the Britannica you have one entire volume, the 29th, which was
made for the sole purpose of increasing the practical efficiency of the
other 28 volumes. Under the heading _Insurance_ in this index, you will
find references to many articles and cross references to Title Insurance
and to Title Guarantee Companies.
Apart from the fact that he has the initial _assurance_ that what he
gets from the Britannica in the first place is fuller and better than he
would get from another work of reference, what are the advantages
offered by the index in this particular instance?
_First_: Instead of having a reference to volume 14 only he has
references to volumes 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20,
22, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28,—nineteen volumes in all,—say a gain of 1800%
in efficiency.
_Second_: Instead of having one article Insurance to refer to, he has
reference to specific information in the following articles:
_Annuity_,
_Austria_,
_Average_,
_Barratry_,
_Bonus_,
_Employers’ Liability_,
_Fire and Fire Extinction_,
_Friendly Societies_,
_Gaming and Wagering_,
_Guarantee_,
_Income Tax_,
_Infanticide_,
_Japan_,
_Land Registration_,
_Lloyds_,
_Mensuration_,
_Novation_,
_Old Age Pensions_,
_Post Office_,
_Probability_,
_Shipbuilding_,
_Socialism_,
_Switzerland_,
_Title Guarantee Companies_,
_Tontine_,
_Underwriter_,
_Unemployment_,
_Warranty_.
That is, to 28 new articles,—say 2800% additional gain.
Observe, too, that this is a gain that cannot be expressed in figures.
The index references are classified. First there is a main head
_Insurance_; then subheads, _Fire_, _Life_, _Marine_, _Title_,
_Workmen’s_; and under the subheads special topics arranged
alphabetically.
In brief, the Index facilitates and accelerates reference to anything in
the Britannica that bears on any desired topic.
The article INSURANCE opens with a definition of that word and with
drawing a distinction between it and “assurance.” The general history of
insurance traces marine insurance back to Greek commerce in the 4th
century B.C., but shows that modern methods of marine insurance were
unknown until the 14th century; that fire insurance dates from the 17th
century and especially from the Great Fire of London in 1666; and that,
although there were a few instances of life insurance in the 16th and
17th centuries, it did not become a regular business until the 18th
century and was not widely extended until the 19th century. Separate
sections of the article deal with _Casualty_ (or accident) and
_Miscellaneous Insurance_, _Fire Insurance_, _Life Insurance_, _British
Post Office Insurance_, and _Marine Insurance_.
The section on British Post-Office Insurance will give to the American
insurance man a knowledge of this innovation in the post-office to which
the American post-office seems to be tending, if one may judge by the
introduction of postal savings-banks and the adoption of the
parcels-post system.
In the same way the article OLD AGE PENSIONS will make you acquainted
with another radical measure which has been adopted in Great Britain,
Germany, France, Denmark, Victoria and notably New Zealand, with fuller
description in the article NEW ZEALAND. The importance of the subject to
the American insurance man lies in the fact that similar schemes are
under consideration or actual operation in Massachusetts, New Jersey,
and other states of the United States. In the same way the article on
EMPLOYERS LIABILITY and WORKMEN’S INSURANCE will give him a wider grasp
of the subject of state insurance, mandatory or elective, for workmen.
The principal articles on insurance topics have already been mentioned.
It is to be noted, however, that the actuary will find important
information in the mathematical articles MENSURATION and PROBABILITY;
that the article FRIENDLY SOCIETIES is supplemented by such special
articles as FREE MASONRY, B’NAI BRITH, BUILDING SOCIETIES, BURIAL
SOCIETIES, ODD FELLOWS, etc.
In the _Classified List of Articles_ in the Index Volume the student of
insurance will find on page 893 a list of articles in the field of
economics and social science, many of which will bear more or less
directly on the subject. Among these articles and sub-articles are:
Abandonment
Accident
Actuary
Annuity
Assets
Austria
Average
Baby-Farming
Barratry
Boarding-out System
Bonus
Bounty
Casualty Insurance
Census
Charity
Co-insurance
Combination
Communism
Conflict of Insurance Laws
Co-operation
Emigration
Employers’ Liability
Eugenics
Fire and Fire Extinction
Fire Insurance
Foundling Hospitals
F. P. A. Liabilities
Friendly Societies
Gaming and Wagering
General
Guarantee
Halley’s Table
Housing
Illegitimacy
Income Tax
Industrial Insurance
Infanticide
Insurance
Interest factor
Japan
Labour Legislation
Land Registration
Liability
Life Insurance
Lloyd’s
Maritime Insurance
Mendicancy
Mensuration
Mutual Insurance
Mortality Rates
Negative Values
Net Liability
Net Premium
Non-forfeiture
Northampton Table
Novation
Old Age Pensions
Pauperism
Pawnbroking
Policy
Poor Law
Population
Post Office
Premium
Probability
Production
Profit Sharing
Rates of Mortality
Reserve
Salvage
Selection
Shipbuilding
Socialism
Social Settlements
Subrogation
Suicide
Sumptuary Laws
Surplus
Surrender Values
Switzerland
Tariff
Taxation of Insurance
Title Guarantee Companies
Tontine
Trade Unions
Tramp
Trusts
Underwriter
Unemployment
Usury
Wages
Warranty
Wealth