Description: Trends in mortality have a huge impact on the insurance industry and its products, risks and profitability. Worldwide, life expectancy has increased continuously over the past decades. However, this progress—even without considering the Covid-19 pandemic—has been subject to strong fluctuations. In recent years, an increase in volatility can be observed. Various aspects—medical science, environment, lifestyle—have influenced the trend in the past. How can the life and health industry move forward in these uncertain conditions? In this article, we examine what has gone before and what can be learned from a closer analysis. What are the main drivers of the historical increase in life expectancy? What characterizes the dynamics of the recent past? How can mortality be projected into the future? How good are our methods of prediction and what are the risks? What risk management options are available?

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: Conventional wisdom in the U.S. is that mortality by violent causes of death is disproportionately experienced in underrepresented communities. This study aims to quantify this experience in more detail than is commonly reported.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Pension Section has completed a research effort exploring the value of longevity pooling and its implications.

Description: This report discusses drivers of U.S. mortality improvement for the short and long term.

Description: This article was presented at the 1975 Spring Cincinnati Joint Meeting of the Conference of Actuaries in Public Practice and Society of Actuaries and addresses the impact of the following changes on future needs for pension coverage, future amounts of pension benefits, and costs of funding.

Description: Suicide is one of the ten leading causes of death in the United States and the only one of those causes that is trending in the wrong direction over the last 15 years. This article examines several aspects of suicide in the United States with a focus on its impact on the insurance industry. The findings were compiled from publicly available data through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from internal RGA data, and also from interviews with topic experts. The article highlights the difference in suicide rates between the general population and the insured population, the proportion of claims from suicide, the spike in suicide rates at the end of the contestability (or exemption period), and current thoughts from counseling experts on prevention. It also demonstrates an increase in suicide rates during times of economic turmoil.

Description: This article is a follow up to an article in the February, 1977 issue of the actuary, which was a discussion of the article, Sex and the Single Table. This article is a reply by Barbara J. Lautzenheiser, FSA, author of Sex and the Single Table, to a comment her original article generated. This current article again provides an excellent explanation of actuarial risk classification practices, and of the legal and social issues used to argue against risk classification, noting that if society does favor policy that overrides risk classification based on gender, such as promoting unisex tables for determining pension payments, then the implications should be understood.

Description: Article discusses the how the older population has been treated throughout history with low regard and often as a burden on society.

Description: This article uses a fairy tale to tell a story about life annuities and gender.