Description: updates on SOA research

Description: Historically, male mortality rates were below those of females. However, that trend has been reversed within the last 100 to 150 years, causing revolutionary changes in the role of women. This subject was examined in a paper on “Mortality Trends of Males and Females Over the Ages” by Barnet N. Berin, George J. Stolnitz and Aaron Tenenbein, presented at the Centennial meeting.

Description: This article provides a very high level overview of accelerated underwriting programs and their history in the US marketplace. It then discusses setting up an actuarial control cycle for such products and some items related to risk management that are helpful in this setting. Pros and cons of retrospective studies, random holdouts, targeted holdouts and post issue analysis are discussed. A mathematical example of how to estimate the mortality impact of such programs from early emerging experience is provided.

Description: In 2015, LIMRA partnered with the SOA on a study that focused on examining individual LTC policy termination experience including both voluntary lapse and mortality results. This work was based on data submitted by 22 LTC carriers representing approximately 75 percent of the LTC lives inforce over the study period 2000-2011. This article discusses an area of emphasis for the policy terminations work which was to better understand the impact of data quality on reported results given the continued difficulty for insurers in accurately distinguishing voluntary lapse activity from deaths.

Description: Future mortality improvement has been a common assumption in life insurance and annuity pricing and forecasting for many years. However, experience over the last decade suggests this might be an assumption that merits reconsideration in the United States. This article will take a closer look at factors that impact mortality improvement trends and discuss why insurers may want to reevaluate product designs to better manage the associated mortality risk. We then introduce a product idea with this in mind, where premiums are based on a life expectancy index and insurers share the risk (and opportunity) or mortality improvement with policyholders.

Description: This article is an introduction to the topic of mortality projections and their impact on social security systems. The article reviews two life expectancy graphs and overall trends in life expectancy by gender at birth and age 65 in the United States, Canada and the UK.

Description: The recent release of the RP-2014 Mortality Table and Scale MP-2014 exposure drafts represent the SOA’s first comprehensive reexamination of U.S. pension-related mortality assumptions in over a decade. This paper summarizes the key conclusions reached in those exposure drafts and the estimated financial impact of adopting the new mortality assumptions.

Description: This paper presents a brief history of life insurance risk assessment and explores a future including wearable devices, genetic testing and digital health data

Description: This article discusses two sets of blended by sex 1980 CSO mortality tables for use in determining minimum cash values and nonforfeiture benefits for life insurance policies issued in employee benefit plans which, because of the Norris decision, must provide equal benefits to men and women.