Attending GIRO 40 were 10 of the pioneers who were at the first GIRO Conference in 1974. There were very few actuaries then involved in general insurance, probably no more than 40, and they wanted to get together to arrange joint research and share ideas.
Motor insurance was changing, the old tariff had collapsed, there were insolvencies, the government regulator was embarrassed and there was significant growth. So 24 of them met together in Norwich for two days covering market statistics, profit, supervision, and technical reserves in general insurance.
The meeting was such a success that it was unanimously agreed to repeat it one year later. Furthermore, volunteers agreed to join working parties to research together and produce papers for the next year. Meetings of GIRO have been held every year since and the number of attendees has grown at an amazing rate, from 24 to 733. It is also interesting, and a compliment to those pioneers, that the culture and format established at GIRO 1 has remained basically the same and also been used in other actuarial disciplines.
