Description: This article talks about longevity risk and reinsurance and its global challenges.

Description: The percentage of the population who are obese has grown dramatically worldwide over the last several decades, although stabilizing recently in the United States. Studies have found the effects on mortality to be inconsistent and controversial because of methodological differences and the complexity of the relationship between obesity and mortality. This paper discusses this relationship and sheds light on the likely effects of this epidemic. Issues associated with the so-called obesity-mortality paradox, where mortality experience is lower for those individuals who are overweight and in some who are obese compared with the mortality of those in the normal weight category, are examined. Although certain recently reported studies of the relationship between mortality and obesity indicate that obesity is related to a reduced percent of additional mortality, this may in part be due to the shorter average time that those currently obese have been exposed to their condition. Nevertheless, the amount of health care costs and rates of disability associated with being obese are significant, contributing to the increase in overall health care costs as they become more numerous and age. Although obesity is being addressed with a great deal of activity and publicity, they will continue to prove challenging for individuals and society to manage and overcome.

Description: Presented at October 1985 Annual Meeting. Discusses how much of the sex mortality differential is due to smoking habits, how convincing are existing studies, what do worldwide trends in mortality suggest about the effects of smoking and on mortality, how well do insurers classify the smoking risk, and the United States Life Tables for 1979-81 paper by Myers and Bayo.

Description: The premise underlying the method illustrated is simply that, in a suit for damages based on earnings lost by reason of premature death or permanent disability, the value of future earnings should not be measured in terms of the whole of life but rather in terms of a more realistic work life expectancy.

Description: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.

Description: This article describes techniques and models used to forecast mortality improvement and the considerations that underlie long-term mortality improvement projections in the United States.

Description: In this project the researchers explored the new opportunities provided by the ongoing revolution in information technology for studies of exceptional human longevity. Methodologies and interpretation of the results were presented.

Description: The article discovers that mortality is higher for females than for males at higher ages, and suggests "stress" as the explanation. It then discusses mental illness research, including recovery therefrom.

Description: Demography is a very exciting subject. With a simple mathematical model, students can project a country's population forward 25, 59, 75 even 100 years. This paper will focus on six ideas from demography. They all can be useful to an actuary, yet none of them would be considered at any length if the actuary didn’t study demography.

Description: This article examines the impact of a changing smoking rate on population-level mortality improvement and the importance of taking this driver into account.