Description: Actuaries have been indebted to the Statistical Bureau of the Metropolitan Life for studies in vital statistics associated with the names of Dublin, Lew and Spiegelman and a recent study by Quint and Cody is in this tradition. It is headed Preeminence and Mortality and was presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association last November. This article shares further perspectives about longevity, and the characteristics of people who experience long lives.

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: In this expository paper several comments are made with respect to the statistical independence of the curtate future lifetime and the fractional part of the future lifetime, both of a general status. In particular, the conditions for independence need to be stated carefully. The last-survivor status is cited as an example. More general assumptions than the uniform distribution of deaths assumption are then considered, together with applications to insurances, annuities, and reserves. Similar results to those under the uniform distribution of deaths assumption are obtained. Brief comments are made with respect to contingent probabilities in multiple lives and multiple decrement theory.

Description: The author explores the issue of longevity risk with its implications for life insurers and society at large, and concludes that the actuarial profession is in a unique position to understand longevity risk and offer solutions.

Description: This is a summary of topics discussed at the 1996 Bowles Symposium: “The Old Age Crisis: Actuarial Opportunities,” September 26-27, 1996, at Georgia State University, Atlanta.

Description: In this paper we present a large-scale study of the Medicare Part B mortality experience over the entire decade of the 1990's based on the Social Security Administration's Master Beneficiary Record, and featuring an extensive effort to edit the microdata, particularly by comparison with other data files.

Description: Graphs mortality experience over the prior 15 years, show possible trends over the prior 80 years, discusses the impact on liabilities and funding of the New York public retirement system based on projections of life expectancy, and discusses the possible factors that have affected mortality.

Description: Discussion of three papers presented at Living to 100 and Beyond symposium. Papers discussed: ' The Roles of Aging, Longevity Determination and Pathology on Human Life Span and Life Expectation' by Hayflick, 'Plastic Omega' by Held, and 'Underlying and Multiple Cause Mortality at Advanced Ages: United State 1980 - 1998' by Stallard. The first paper is an overview on aging, the second paper is a survey of aging research and the third paper discusses underlying and multiple cause mortality.

Description: The abstract for the paper An Investigation of Select Birth Cohorts.

Description: Discussion focuses on available data, purpose of the mortality table, and what changes may be needed. From 2005 Living to 100 and Beyond Monograph, M-LI05-1.