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

Description: Report featuring tables showing the Group Annuity Mortality experience for the year 1951 by attained age for lives retiring on and after normal retirement date.

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: The purpose of this SOA-sponsored research was to assemble and analyze a limited large claims database which may serve as a model for expanded inter-company studies of health care benefits in the future. From Group Medical Insurance Large Claims Database Collection and Analysis, M-HB97-1.

Description: This report was presented at the October 1982 Society of Actuaries annual Meeting in Washington D.C.. It presented supplementary information on the 1979 Build and Blood Pressure Study. This supplementary study was made to answer a number of specific questions raised by medical directors and actuaries of life insurance companies as well as by some prominent physicians and research scientists.

Description: The article is Part 1 of two articles that provide a case study for the development of a profitability and risk dashboard. The sample dashboard provides distilled information regarding actual to expected (A/E) ratios for key risks, agent quality scores and customer value scores. The dashboard would also provide the value of new business written, surplus strain, debit balances, and expected losses on debit balances at different levels, down to the agent level. A product mix index is provided, together with visual comparisons of key metrics to the company's business plan. The Part 2 article will add information to the dashboard regarding risk margins, target capital, and company value.

Description: Pricing longevity swap reinsurance transactions consists of a number of different actuarial tasks, each of which hides potential pitfalls. The article outlines the pricing process, which includes a detailed analysis of current mortality experience of the portfolio to be transferred, choice and calibration of an appropriate model for mortality improvement trends and the calculation of a risk margin which reflects the uncertainty associated with the pricing best-estimate, which includes mis-estimation risk, model risk, longevity basis risk and stochastic uncertainty.

Description: This is a study of irregularities in pulse beats detected by the electrocardiogram and the impact on mortality experience at one company. Followed by a discussion paper

Description: A discussion of the mortality experience of many countries which demonstrates a dip/decline in mortality rates by age during the period from age 20 to 29. Consideration is then given to the causes of the phenomenon under review.

Description: This study develops mortality ratios, using contemporary population tables and standard industry tables as the base of expected deaths, for 3,037 members 2,811 Fellows and 226 Associates of the Society of Actuaries observed from January 1, 1955 through December 31, 2004.