Mortality Improvement Scale MP-2015

Experience Studies – Pension

The Retirement Plans Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries (RPEC) is pleased to present an update to Mortality Improvement Scale MP-2014, which was released in October 2014. This updated scale was created using two additional years of historical data and the same RPEC_2014 model that was used to produce Scale MP-2014. For clarity, the updated mortality improvement scale is called MP-2015.

Within the MP-2014 report, RPEC indicated an intention to publish updated improvement scales at least triennially. Subsequent to the development of Scale MP-2014, the Social Security Administration (SSA) released two years of additional mortality data. To reflect this latest available data, RPEC is now publishing this 2015 update and intends on providing future annual updates to the model as soon as practicable following the public release of updated data upon which the model is constructed.

The Scale MP-2015 Report has been posted at right under ‘Related Links’ along with an Excel version of Scale MP-2015.

Also at right under “Related Links” is a version of the RPEC_2014 model which incorporates the two additional years of historical data. This Excel-based implementation tool can be used to generate alternate improvement scales using the RPEC_2014 methodology.

In the Questions and Answers section of the Scale MP-2015 document, “Q5” alluded to an update to the “2D to 1D Conversion Tool”, which was created to accompany the Scale MP-2014 Report. At right under “Related Links” is a new version of this tool which incorporates the new Scale MP-2015 rates.

The final item under “Related Links” is a link to the original Mortality Improvement Scale MP-2014 report, which discusses in detail the underlying data, methodology, and application of the RPEC_2014 model.