Before most readers were born, and for those that were they were still thinking mathematics was a lucrative career choice, reinsurance played a trivial role in the life insurance industry. In Canada 0.04% (rounded up of course) of all life risk was reinsured in 1969. There was a slightly higher percentage in the USA but my notes and memory failed to enlighten me as I wrote this article.
Believe it or not for you youngsters, reinsurance was a follower and minor player in the realm of life insurance risk taking. The icons of the era were insurance company leaders not reinsurance personnel. Reinsurance personnel deferred to the wise counsel of insurance leaders who were at the leading edge of pricing and risk selection. Content to beg or cajole for a mere pittance of the premium pot, the reinsurers fought each other for the privilege of table scraps if we liken the fat purses of insurers to the gluttonous meals served to the emerging obese of today. About the only worthy feature of reinsurers in the "good old days" was their research into impaired lives and the experimental risk taking they fostered for notoriety.