Description: This 1978 panel discussed risk classification systems for a variety of products. Topics covered included: 1. regulatory and social policy encroachment on risk classification systems 2. possible changes in underwriting/marketing strategy because of changed regulatory requirements 3. use of the social imperative via regulation or legislation to mandate availability of coverage to high risk classifications 4. implied use of the risk classification system to provide incentives to control socially undesirable behavior 5. potential use of private mass coverage to minimize the impact on risk classification systems for coverages mandated by law or social policy 6. the ultimate in risk classification systems: self-insurance

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. Discusses the latest developments in underwriting and their potential impact on mortality, and the most recent mortality statistics.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 Hartford Spring Meeting is about the trends in risk classification and selection criteria used for underwriting risks for individual life insurance. Use of various laboratory tests based on analysis of blood and urine samples is discussed.

Description: 1993 SOA Annual Meeting in New York. This session is about risk-appraisal techniques for the 21st century. Topics Include: 1. Some approaches that companies take and some issues that companies face in establishing preferred-risk underwriting programs. 2. Marketing, product design, and underwriting considerations for joint and second-to-die life insurance products. 3. Establishing assumptions for preferred-risk programs as well as some of the marketplace issues that need to be considered. 4. Expert underwriting systems. 5. The need for consistency in underwriting. 6. Developing trends in testing techniques and how those trends can be utilized in the underwriting process.

Description: This 1978 SOA session presented some provisional findings of the new Build and Blood Pressure Study. Some of the findings: 1. The average weights of men in the new study exceed the corresponding weights in the previous 1959 study by 2 to 8 pounds in the thirties, and by up to 5 pounds in the fifties. 2. The mortality ratios of overweight men are not significantly different in the new study from those in the 1959 study. 3. Markedly overweight men experienced lower mortality in the current study than in the 1959 study. 4. Men weighing 20 percent below average recorded 10 to 15 percent higher mortality in the new study than in the 1959 study. 5. Mortality of overweight women is relatively lower than that of overweight men. 6. Mortality of men with elevated systolic and diastolic pressures was appreciably lower than in the 1959 study. 7. Mortality of women with moderately elevated systolic and diastolic pressures was not significantly different from that in the 1959 study. 8. The presence of minor impairments alongside of blood pressures in excess of 150/90 usually produced significant increases in mortality.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting presents an overview of risk classification, what principles define a sound system, changes in underwriting due to expert system technology, and determining the value of laboratory tests.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. This session explores new underwriting criteria, including the following topics: What's new in simplified underwriting, Speed to decision, Electronic databases, Teleunderwriting, Prescription drug underwriting, Results analysis, Implementation.

Description: This is a panel discussion on individual life insurance underwriting principles and practices that occurred in 1976. It discussed a paper by Alton Morton entitled Individual Life Insurance Underwriting Principles and Practices: A 1976 Review.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. The panel examined challenges posed by the onset of the 21st century to the underwriter and the actuary. Questions addressed included: 1. How can the underwriting process be expedited without surrendering required mortality margins? 2. What different information is needed? 3. Where will this information come from? 4. Who will obtain it and how will it be delivered? 5. How will the actuary assess the real value of these new sources?

Description: This session 84I of the 2001 SAO Annual Meeting in New Orleans is about how many insurers are migrating toward Web-based interactive underwriting systems in order to economize and streamline the underwriting process. This requires some radically different techniques well beyond the time-honored traditional approaches. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol 27, No. 3