ince its emergence in the 1500s, the UK life insurance industry has been a keen adopter of technologies. The earliest life insurance policy is believed to be dated 1583 and covers the life of a William Gibbons. At that time, technology included the abacus – one of the earliest calculating devices. The 1700s saw the introduction of logarithms and mortality tables, while the 1800s brought machines and devices to assist calculation. Electrically operated machines began to appear in actuarial departments in the 1930s, but it wasn’t until the early 1960s that we saw the first electronic desk calcu
