Description: The impact of the underlying mortality table selected as a basis for projecting mortality results

Description: This article describes the activities and results of an SOA Task Force on Expansion of Mortality and Morbidity Statistics which was formed to review the mortality and morbidity research undertaken and the statistics published outside the recognized actuarial organizations.

Description: Review of a new text on mortality measurement, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Robert W. Batten.

Description: This article focuses on these Key Points - The Situation: Mortality Improvement assumption is not a simple equation. What Could Happen: Any mortality improvement assumption is a bit of a ‘bet’ relative to the ongoing penetration of known developments and the introduction of new developments, such as the appearance of the AIDS epidemic. What Needs to Happen: Better understanding of Mortality Improvement assumption, final assumption, and best estimate approach.

Description: Discussion of the separate and joint effects of obesity and diabetes on disability and mortality, and ways these effects can be used to improved insurance pricing and reserving, reverse the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, and improve current projections of disability and mortality risks.

Description: Feature article discussing the Life Settlements business: recent growth, pricing, and future of the business.

Description: Provides a brief review of World Population: An Analysis of Vital Data by N. Keyfitz and W. Flieger. It presented a collection of life tables and related data covering more than 60 populations over 180 years. This book presents data on mortality from recorded causes of death in 180 populations, with detail provided on age and sex .... This volume should reduce substantially problems of data availability by providing information on mortality experience spanning a period of 103 years, for 48 nations, and encompassing a range of life expectancies from 27 to 77. The data will assist the social scientist in documenting such matters as the sources of the vital revolution, causes of increasing sex mortality differentials, components of age curves of mortality, geographic and temporal variations in mortality structure, and economic and social costs of a disease.

Description: This article is an introduction to the topic of mortality projections and their impact on social security systems. The article reviews two life expectancy graphs and overall trends in life expectancy by gender at birth and age 65 in the United States, Canada and the UK.

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.