A.M.P. SOCIETY

Hokitika Guardian, 20 April 1929, Page 2

A.M.P. SOCIETY

RECORD YEAR.

ANNUAL MEETING,

SYDNEY, April 12

At the annual meeting of the Society hold this afternoon, chairman referred to the splendid progress during the year 1928. Further records have Leon created and the cash surplus tor the one year reached iover £3,000,009. The chairman (Sir William \\ . Meeks) in the course of his speech said:

In presenting this report to members for adoption, it gives me pleasure for the seventh year in succession to chronicle a fresh new business record both in the ordinary and industrial departments, as well as continued uniformity of excellence throughout the .whole of the society’s activities. The new business record has been accomplished despite untoward conditions which prevailed throughout the greater part of Australia during the year in the shape of drought, business depression, and industrial troubles, all of which militated to a greater or Jess extent against the success of our outdoor representatives. In several ol the States nevertheless particularly satisfactory increases were shown, blit perhaps the most notable contribution to the improvement in the returns reached the society from the Dominion of New Zealand. The reasons for this are not far to seek. They lie in the general prosperity and contentment ol the New Zealand people assisted bv the broadminded encouragement which the Dominion Government extends to life assurance through the medium of the taxation Acts.

The balance-sheet exhibits the distribution of the Society’s assets. As compared with the balance-sheet ol twenty-years ago, a very marked change is shown in that distribution.

The distinct trend shown accumulations from mortgages to public securities has been to a certain extent due to the paramount necessity during the years .1.914 to 1918, of assisting financially in the efficient prosecution of the war. but it is largely due also to the operation of the lines of policy apparently favoured by the people of Australia and New Zealand, as expressed through their Parliaments, of relying more and more upon > their Governments for providing all kinds of public utilities and financing primary and other industries, which in other countries are left to private enterprise Criticism is directed occasionally towards our large investments in Government, public body, and municipal loans, but mortgage investments on unimpeachable security to an extent sufficient to absorb our funds are not always forthcoming, and your directors can only face the actual facts, the outcome of. which is indicated in the movement to which attention is directed.

Jn the valuation of the policy liabilities tho same stringent standard has been employed, viz., the assumption in the calculations that only 3 per cent, interest will be yielded by our funds, as has been in use for some years past, and after provision has been made, in addition for all possible contingencies that can be foreseen, a divisible surplus of £3,005,538, excluding interim bonuses, is disclosed in tnc Ordinary Department, and £530,291 in the Industrial Department. Including a sum of £29,080 paid as interim bonuses during the year in the Ordinary Department, these sums represent 58.1 per cent, of the participating premiums paid in tho former and 15.9 per cent, of the premiums paid in the latter, the highest percentage of premium revenue in each department yet allocated by the Society. A new milestone, moreover, has been passed in the division of over £.3,000,009 amongst Ordinary Department members. The reversionary bonuses now to be declared in the Ordinary Department will bo practically tbc same for all ages and durations as those allotted last year. In the Industrial Department an appreciable increase will be exhibited. 1

desire to emphasise the fact, however, as specially pointed out in the report, that owing to the incidence of the increased taxation recently imposed by the Commonwealth and by the State of New South Wales, our charge in this direction will immediately he more than doubled, and tlui: the Ordinary Department bonuses ii the future must be reduced while that taxation lasts by about 5 per cent., for taxation can be provided from no other source. Taxation of institutions not

carrying on business for purposes of gain, and of co-operative and mutual thrift oranisations, is quite foreign to the fundamental spirit of both the State and the Federal taxation Acts.

savings hanks, friendly societies, etc., being all exempt from taxation. Indeed, mutual life assurance societies are the only institutions of this character which are taxed. Up to the present they have been taxed in this way only by the States. The Federal Parliament, to its credit, he it said, has hitherto refrained, even during the war, from imposing income tax on mutual life assurance offices, and it is 1 think, to ho regretted that what is

thought to bo the imperative need for more revenue should have led to such a serious departure from the sound principles previously observed of exempting from taxation the sacred provision made by life assurance policyholders for their dependents. Further, the funds of the Society (and a similar consideration applies to cognate institutions), large ms they ere, repicsenfc simply tho accumulation of the small savings, wisely cared for nnd husbanded, of an immense number of policy-holders, tho average annual pre-

mium per policy in the Ordinary Department being only a little over £l2 and in the Industrial Department slightly under £3. The vast majority of our policy-holders obviously do not come within the scope of the taxation Acts in their personal capacity, but through the medium of the Society are nevertheless taxed for no other reason than that they have the prudence to assure their lives.

89 YEARS’ RETROSPECT

At the close of 1928 the Society completed 80 years of its history. 'lho story of its birth, of its establishment by honourable and capable administration on a sound and permanent

iasis, and of its development as the jutcome of a far-seeing and progressive policy, into the greatest mutual

life assurance- institution in the Empire, is more than a twice-told tale

and is familiar to you all. 'The infant of 1849, with a small room for an office over a grocer’s shop in George St., near Hunter street, Sydney, with the unpaid secretary and a staff of but one office boy, whose time was mostly taken up in amusing himself by means ol a catapult with a target consisting of a 'tided coffee pot projecting over the front of the building, indicating the ntsiness carried on below by the Society’s landlord; with a register at the cud of. the first year of 42 policies and funds of loss than £IOO, now in this year of grace owns G 5 offices over 'the length and breadth of Australia and New Zealand, as well as a handsome ’ uikling in London ; employs a permanent indoor stall' of 929, and an

outdoor staff of 120, as well as agency staff numbering over 1100; has on its registers in the two departments about 910,000 policies, assuring with bonuses

over £240,000,000, collects an annual income of nearly £11,000,000 and holds assets of nearly £74,000.000. Since its establishment it has collected in premiums over £122,000,000, and in interest from its investments nearly £04.000/XlO, lias paid over £91,000,000 to its members or their representatives in claims, surrenders, and annuities, and iias distributed about £45,500.000 in cash bonuses. The story of these achievements is one of the romances of finance, and needs no embellishment at tnv hands.

linn people are prone to look to the Government for everything, and I am afraid there is some truth in the impeachment, hut the Society stands today as an outstanding object-lesson to the contrary and a monument of Australian thrift and self-reliance, of mutual and co-operative effort directed into right channels and organised and administered for tho benefit and under the control of its members and its members only, on the highest principles of business integrity and equity.