tontine

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a joint investment or annuity in which the benefits or shares of members who die pass to the surviving participants

   The last surviving subscriber received the remaining income from the tontine.

2. 2
   noun

   a life-insurance arrangement that distributes accumulated benefits among participants who survive a specified period

   The insurer once sold tontines that rewarded policyholders who remained alive and paid up.

From French tontine, named after Lorenzo de Tonti, the Neapolitan banker associated with a survivorship-finance proposal presented in France in the seventeenth century. The name later covered related annuity and insurance schemes.

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