Description: This discussion covers an update on mortality research. Specifically, it highlights the long term conditional survival of cancer patients, recent trends in the mortality of the aged, parametric models for life insurance mortality data, and shares an exposure draft of the derivation of the 1983 table A for individual annuity valuation. From Record of the Society of Actuaries 1981, Volume 7, No. 4.

Description: The objectives of this paper are to determine the extent to which Makeham's or Gompertz's laws describe recent insurance and population mortality analyze how the constants in the two laws vary with respect to some factors and propose a simple extension to Makeham's law to account for recent departures from the laws, related to difference in sex. Presented at Actuarial Research Conference at Ball State University, September 1, 1978

Description: The use of Gompertz's law to describe mortality between the ages of 30 and 90 is discussed in this paper. A further use of Gompertz's law, as a tool in comparing mortality tables, is presented for thirty-three modern tables. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1981, Vol. 33.

Description: A review of 'Life Contingencies' by Alistair Neill, to be used as a textbook for the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries examinations.