Recent Publications

U.S. Post-Level Term Lapse and Mortality Experience Report
Term Life insurance is a popular product in the U.S. As a growing number of policyholders have been reaching the end of the level term period, the SOA has been committed to studying policyholder behavior in the post-level term (PLT). Shock lapse, post-level term lapse and mortality have previously been analyzed in SOA PLT studies conducted in 2010 and 2014. This study provides an update of experience and some valuable new insights.

2020 U.S. Individual Life COVID-19 Mortality Research
LIMRA, RGA Reinsurance, the Society of Actuaries and TAI have collaborated on an effort to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the individual life insurance industry’s mortality experience. The collection of data for this effort began in October 2020 and is on-going. Data contributors were requested to resubmit their data on a monthly basis to enable the Individual Life COVID-19 Project Work to analyze the most recent data available. This report contains the first release of results and is an effort to provide some early insights into the data that has been received to date.

Canadian Report on the Survey of Post-Level Premium Period Lapse and Mortality Assumptions for Level Premium Term Plans
The Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) and Society of Actuaries (SOA) engaged RGA Reinsurance Company (RGA) to undertake a research project on level premium term life insurance products.

The SOA offers a variety of software and tools to help you in your work with relative risk and mortality calculations

Relative Risk Tool

Mortality and Other Rate Tables

This special episode of the SOA’s Research Insights Podcast highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting actuaries and their interaction with U.S. insurance regulators. We were pleased to be joined by Mike Consedine, Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).

2020 Excess Deaths in the U.S. General Population by Age and Sex
This document describes an effort to measure the deaths in the US population relative to pre-pandemic expectations.

Life Reinsurance Treaty Recapture Provisions
The Reinsurance Section and the Product Development Section are pleased to make available a new report examining industry perspectives on life reinsurance treaty recapture provisions.

Macroeconomics-Based Economic Scenario Generation
The Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Section and the Joint Risk Management Research Committee are pleased to make available new research introducing actuaries and others to dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models, a type of macroeconomic model.  

Learn about mortality disparities in the U.S.

Access the monograph on longevity and retirement from the SOA Living to 100 Symposium.

Access the SOA’s collection of mortality and longevity research.

2009-13 U.S. Individual Life Persistency Report  
This report presents the results of the most recent study of individual life insurance lapse experience in the United States conducted jointly by LIMRA and the Society of Actuaries (SOA). The observation period for the study is calendar years 2009-13. The study is based on data provided by 16 individual life insurance writers and it presents lapse experience for whole life, term life, universal life and variable universal life plans issued between 1918 and 2012.

Drivers of U.S. Mortality Improvement Expert Panel Forum Report 
This report summarizes a daylong Expert Panel Forum discussion, which included experts from inside and outside the insurance/retirement industry, who were invited to participate in a discussion to provide input about drivers of U.S. mortality improvement for the short and long term.