Supplement of July 12, 1925, giving the generals results for the year 1924:—
"In this brief preliminary survey we are concerned with the broad effects of the year and its contribution to the resources of British insurance. It is rather misleading to talk or write of 'profits' when we are considering the underwriting surpluses of insurance companies, those balances of the annual premiums which remain over after claims, expenses, and unexpired liabilities have been met. In the technical and legal sense they are, of course, profits belonging to the shareholders. But, unlike the profits of an ordinary trading company, they are not, except to a very small extent, available for distribution. These annual profits of insurance—or, as we prefer to call them, these annual surpluses—are the materials, and the sole materials, out of which the powerful structure of insurance is built up. They provide the slowly accumulating reserves for contingencies upon which security rests, and without which insurance, from the public point of view, would be little better than a gamble. In order to achieve security of the highest class, these annual surpluses, when they are earned, are always treated as funds held in trust for the public rather than as cake to be cut up and divided among shareholders. Out of
