Description: This is a panel discussion on individual life insurance underwriting principles and practices that occurred in 1976. It discussed a paper by Alton Morton entitled Individual Life Insurance Underwriting Principles and Practices: A 1976 Review.

Description: This report presents the results of the Survey on the Business Decision practices of direct companies conducted by the Society of Actuaries Committee on Life Insurance Mortality and Underwriting Surveys. A survey of reinsurers is reported separately.

Description: This 1978 panel discussed risk classification systems for a variety of products. Topics covered included: 1. regulatory and social policy encroachment on risk classification systems 2. possible changes in underwriting/marketing strategy because of changed regulatory requirements 3. use of the social imperative via regulation or legislation to mandate availability of coverage to high risk classifications 4. implied use of the risk classification system to provide incentives to control socially undesirable behavior 5. potential use of private mass coverage to minimize the impact on risk classification systems for coverages mandated by law or social policy 6. the ultimate in risk classification systems: self-insurance

Description: This report documents the work of the UCT with respect to development of an algorithm used to score preferred risk class structures, producing Relative Risk Scores and Prevalences. It is built for both knockout and debit-credit scoring methodologies.

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: Panelists discuss pricing issues, patent issues, safeguards, successes, failures, and other observations about the future of automated underwriting. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 134PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.

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: The article summarizes two of the highest rated sessions sponsored by the Reinsurance Section during the 2013 SOA Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Description: 1981 Report covering the period 1978 - 1980 presents statistics on the accidental fatality experience of various sports and sports-related occupations.

Description: In May of 2006 the Life Insurance Mortality and Underwriting Survey Committee of the SOA surveyed both reinsurers and direct companies about their practices with respect to making business decisions in the underwriting process. This article highlights the comparison of the results of the two surveys.