Description: This session is about recent population experience, likely causes, probable future prospects, Industry mortality differentials and trends by product line,market and type of underwriting, What statistically credible evidence do we have for the efficacy of life insurance underwriting practices, What does the new Intercompany Standard Issues study show and Are there sound biological laws of mortality. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 5, No. 4.

Description: This paper and discussion is a review of the changes that have occurred recently in the basic principles that underlie the sale and distribution of individual life insurance including underwriting fairness, laws and regulations affecting discrimination, limitations in the underwriting process and competition. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1977, Vol. 29.

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 paper examines the effects of selection procedures used in epidemiologic studies and suggests that similar procedures could be employed to select standard ordinary insurance risks at the older ages. The experience in this paper was developed from a prospective epidemiologic investigation launched by the American Cancer Society in the fall of 1959 to learn how personal characteristics, living styles, and environmental conditions influence health and longevity.