Description: This research report examines the ban of the use of genetic testing information in life insurance mortality.

Description: This is a tool to model the impact of a ban of the use of genetic testing information in life insurance underwriting.

Description: The attached report presents the results of the survey conducted by the SOA Committee on Life Insurance Mortality and Underwriting Surveys on risk management practices of US life insurance companies. Both direct individual and group life insurance and reinsurance were included in the survey.

Description: This is a study of irregularities in pulse beats detected by the electrocardiogram and the impact on mortality experience at one company. Followed by a discussion paper

Description: This report presents the compilation of data received from life companies responding to a survey on preferred risk underwriting and provides opinions of the Task Force on Preferred Underwriting with respect to future trends.

Description: This report presents the compilation of data received from life companies responding to a survey on preferred risk underwriting and provides opinions of the Task Force on Preferred Underwriting with respect to future trends.

Description: This report, the second such report, presents the compilation of data received from life companies responding to a survey on preferred risk underwriting and provides opinions of the Task Force on Preferred Underwriting with respect to future trends.

Description: This report examines mortality and other actuarial assumptions for products sold at older ages.

Description: This is a report on Phase 2 of a research project on the role of automated systems in life insurance underwriting. This paper discusses: 1. How and why companies are using automation to make underwriting decisions. 2. Its impact upon operational efficiency, sales, and retention. 3. The quality of risk selection produced by automated systems. 4. Cultural acceptance of increased automation in underwriting. 5. Challenges insurers must overcome to implement and maintain automated underwriting.

Description: Consumer groups fear that the use of genetic testing information in insurance underwriting might lead to the creation of an underclass of individuals who cannot obtain insurance. Thus, these groups want to ban insurance companies from accessing genetic test results. Insurers contend that such a ban might lead to adverse selection that could threaten their financial solvency. To investigate the potential effect of adverse selection in a term life insurance market, a discrete-time, discrete-state, Markov chain is used to track the evolution of 12 closed cohorts of women, differentiated by family history of breast and ovarian cancer and age-at-issue of a 20-year annually renewable term life insurance policy. The insurance demand behavior of these women is tracked, incorporating elastic demand for insurance. During the 20-year period, women may get tested for BRCA 1/2 mutations. Each year, the insurer calculates profits/losses to date and expected future benefit payouts which determines the following year’s premium schedule. At the end of each policy year, women can change their life insurance benefit, influenced by their testing status and premium changes. Adverse selection could result from differentiated: 1. benefits following test results, 2. lapse rates according to test results, and 3. reactions to price increases. It is concluded that with realistic estimates of behavioral parameters, adverse selection should be a manageable problem for insurers. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.