25 Years Ago in The Actuarial Review

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Quirky Discovery?

by Walter C. Wright
This 1979 letter to the editor suggests that actuaries have always had quirky curiosities.

Alphabet Vagaries

To The Actuarial Review:

In the list of CAS members by company circulated by the Society, I made the following observations.
There are 124 companies listed. Fifty-six, or 45%, have initials A, C, M or N. In a standard dictionary I scanned, words with these initials comprise 24% of the pages.

But going even further, there are 14 companies beginning with M, and every “M” company lists one and only one actuary! I haven’t tried to compute the chances of this arrangement, but I think it is impossible.

When one is retired or partly so, one has the chance to make important investigations like this.

—James H. Durkin