Description: Update on Health Section research projects and topics, including new vision and mission statements for the Health Section Council, research and communications projects, and information about the Health Actuarial Research Initiative.

Description: The first preliminary results on international experience studies on mortality and persistency for the pilot countries of Taiwan, Mexico and South Korea are discussed and future expansion of the studies are explained.

Description: Provides a review of the available lapse experience for lapse-supported Life and Long-Term Care products.

Description: Future mortality improvement has been a common assumption in life insurance and annuity pricing and forecasting for many years. However, experience over the last decade suggests this might be an assumption that merits reconsideration in the United States. This article will take a closer look at factors that impact mortality improvement trends and discuss why insurers may want to reevaluate product designs to better manage the associated mortality risk. We then introduce a product idea with this in mind, where premiums are based on a life expectancy index and insurers share the risk (and opportunity) or mortality improvement with policyholders.