ABSTRACT
Originally the Labour Party, following the recommendation of the Beveridge Report, intended to nationalise industrial insurance by taking over the existing concerns, including the Co-operative Insurance Society, and fusing them into a single agency under public ownership. In Great Britain we are accustomed to use the word ‘Co-operative’ in a narrower sense; but this does not alter the fact that mutual insurance societies are essentially Co-operative in form, if not in actual working, so that, if their Co-operative character can be made a reality, there is scope in them for a big extension of the province of Co-operative enterprise. The policy-holders have, in practice, no real control over the existing bodies which are in the form of Collecting Societies, though these are nominally under mutual ownership. In many cases, Consumers’ Co-operative Societies offer their members certain insurance benefits which are covered by collective premiums paid by the Societies to the Co-operative Insurance Society.
