Description: The article warns actuaries that using predictive models in the underwriting process has a strong potential of inadvertently using variables that are prohibited by law.

Description: There are certain occasions when the knowledge we have gained in our jobs carries over into our personal lives. For instance, developing insurance products certainly helps when it comes time to buy an insurance policy. Recently, one of the authors had the experience of giving his 91-year-old grandmother, Nanny as she is affectionately called, an Extended Delayed Word Recall DWR test. This article will show that DWR tests are a powerful predictor of mortality in the elderly. As the population ages and more and more life insurance is being applied for at the older ages, having a DWR test in an underwriting arsenal is like comfort food for an actuary.

Description: A high-level summary of the results of Munich Re's recent Accelerated Underwriting Survey

Description: This article explores implications for the future of improving the application of existing underwriting techniques and and taking maximum advantage of new technologies.

Description: The sentinel effect in the underwriting process refers to the tendency for unhealthy individuals to apply for insurance coverage where testing is not performed. The article reports on evidence of the effect with respect to cocaine and tobacco use and HIV positive prevalence

Description: This article discusses whether or not the Preferred risk class wears off over time.

Description: Describes some of the content of the Underwriting issues and innovations seminar for the last 2 years, and lays out the topics for the seminar for 2015.

Description: Ways of closing the mortality protection gap, by leveraging some of the new technology, data and analytics to reduce the friction in the buying process.

Description: Answering the question: Do you think that genetic information is different, and if so, should insurers handle it differently from other medical information?

Description: Investors in the Life Settlements Market have had to rely on simple actual to expected analyses for a quality assesment of life expectancy reports. This article presents an alternative validation methodology, which makes much better use of the available mortality information. Investors can thereby perform their own, statistically conclusive, analyses concerning the life expectancies on which they have based their pricing and management of future cash flows.