The text of this paper, together with the abstract of the discussion held by the Faculty of Actuaries on 15 November 1999, are printed in British Actuarial Journal, 6, I, 143-213.

Until relatively recently life companies generally met their capital needs either from internal resources or by means of equity capital provided by shareholders. However, the financial pressures on life operations have led to more innovative alternatives being used. In response to these pressures different forms of capital support from reinsurers, banks or other group funds or companies have been developed. In April 1998 National Provident Institution (NPI) became the first life company to issue bonds to investors secured on the future profits expected to arise from part of its existing life business. This paper discusses: financing options available to life companies; the terms of NPI's securitisation; the relative merits of different financing and capital management alternatives; alternative forms of capital support; the implications for policyholders and their interests; and actuarial issues arising from the different forms of financing.

The lecture discusses the issue of actuarial evidence in personal injury cases, and how the courts have been diffident towards actuarial evidence and the utility and importance of actuarial expertise. Until recently lawyers have not understood the ways in which actuaries work with probabilities. The lecture then shows that now the law has adopted actuarial thinking in several significant ways, and in particular in damages and personal injury cases. The discount rate for calculating the multiplier for future loss is discussed, as is the new area of risk assessment and conditional fees. Lawyers need actuarial help where appropriate, and both face the daily problem of applying the laws of probability to human activity.

1999 was the thirteenth year of publication of the World Index series. A change of name reflects the purchase by FTSE International of the stakes owned by Goldman Sachs & Co. and Standard & Poor's. No changes were made in the range of countries covered during the year, but it was agreed that from mid-2001 the series would be adjusted to reflect the available free floats of constituents' shares.

This note continues a regular series on mortality rates in the United Kingdom. Mortality experienced in each of the years 1994 to 1998 is shown by five-year age groups, and comparisons are made for broad age groups, on a standardised basis, with mortality in earlier years.