A MINER'S INQUIRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 9, 10 July 1943, Page 4

A MINER'S INQUIRY

INSURANCE ORIGIN

Interesting facts regarding the origin of the Government Life Insurance Office were mentioned by the new Commissioner of the Department (Mr. J. W. Macdonald) when speaking at a farewell to his predecessor (Mr. Arnold). Mr. Macdonald said he had been fascinated by the discovery, a few years ago, in a very old Postal Department file, of a document which was probably the absolute startingpoint of the Department, the veritable seed from which it sprang. "It was a letter written by a gold miner in Central Otago, dated February 22, 1869, to the Postmaster-General of the day, inquiring whether there was in New Zealand an annuities office, where a man could invest his savings in the purchase of an annuity. He suggested that if such an institution were established it would be a source of revenue to the Treasury and a blessing to many hard-working men on the goldflelds. The letter was minuted by civil servants of the day, and not long after Sir Julius Vogel (then Mr. Vogel) brought a resolution before the House proposing such an office, and this was duly carried. In the same year, 1869, Parliament enacted the legislation establishing this office, and in the following year the Department opened its doors for business. Such was the humble origin, 73 years ago, of the Government Insurance Department, with its roots deeply planted in the heart of a mining camp in Central Otago. "Born in the tough atmosphere of those early days, gathering as it grew something of the indomitable sßirit of the sturdy pioneers, through halcyon days of peace and progress, followed by periods of war, depression, epidemic, and war again, the Department had prospered and grown into a rugged, well-respected institution."