214 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
As to (1) the Committee thought that there was no serious 
risk of a Society having excessive claims for several years in 
succession ; and as to (2), the problem did not appear to them, 
after examination of the statistical data, to be of such magnitude 
as to call for special treatment. 
508. In accordance, however, with their instructions they 
prepared a scheme for re-insurance. This scheme brought out 
the complications inherent in the proposition and demonstrated 
the heavy labour which would be involved in applying any sound 
arrangement of the kind. 
509. On the first (1918) valuation the Government Actuary 
reported a saving in maternity benefit payments on men’s 
insurance of 20 per cent. of the expected payments, and on 
women’s insurance of 36 per cent. One factor was the reduced 
birth rate during the war; but an examination of the experience 
since 1918 suggests that the maternity payments will, in general, 
continue to be within the financial provision for the benefit, and 
that any excess in particular Societies is not of sufficient im- 
portance to justify the introduction of a complicated system of 
re-insurance. 
510. We are of the opinion that reinsurance in the strict 
sense, i.e., by distributing the charge with reference to the 
actuarial value of the risk undertaken by each individual Society 
in respect of the benefit is not practicable. We are advised, 
moreover, that in the calculation of the contribution and reserve 
values as well as in the valuations, account is taken of the varied 
incidence of the cost of maternity benefit with regard to age, 
sex, and in the case of women, marital condition, and that a 
mere pooling of the cost at a uniform rate per head of the 
membership would be inconsistent with these conditions. while 
it would certainly be inequitable. 
511. We, therefore, recommend that no steps should be taken 
to put into operation the provisions of Section 25 of the Act, and 
that the section should be repealed. 
SECTION D.—SPECIAL CLASSES OF INSURED 
PERSONS. 
MARRIED WOMEN. 
512. The question of the provision to be made with regard to 
the insurance of women who give up insurable employment at or 
about the time of their marriage has from the first been a matter 
of great difficulty. Under Section 44 of the Act of 1911 insured 
women who married had, in the first place, to satisfy their 
Approved Societies as to whether they had definitely given up 
employment or not. No precise test of cessation of employment 
was laid down in the Act and in practice it followed that Societies 
were to a larce extent compelled to depend upon the woman's