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.

Description: The presenters will explore the current state of the North American mortality baseline and long-term improvement assumptions and determine what we can learn from the UK's approach. They will share research done by the Society of Actuaries and other organizations to describe how to build a better model, plus show the impact socio-economics and other factors have on longevity expectations. The presenters will offer suggestions for how U.S. and Canadian pension plan and insurance actuaries--and the industry itself--can best use this research to develop a better model for the risk management of pension plans and group annuities

Description: Table of Contents to the 1951 Reports of Mortality and Morbidity.

Description: This article details different methods for calculating mortality impact associated with new underwriting programs. A common simplified calculation is compared and contrasted with two first principles approaches. The strengths and weaknesses of both approaches are discussed.

Description: The 2009 Estonia experience study includes both mortality and persistency studies of policies in force any time during the 2006-2008 study period. The study applies to the entire portfolios of the contributing companies and these companies represent the vast majority of the Estonia individual life insurance market. Separate studies were performed based upon policy counts and insurance in force. Actual mortality was compared to expected mortality based upon the SOA 1975-80 select and ultimate mortality table.

Description: The presenters will highlight differences in mortality that result from socioeconomic issues. Topics will include the differences in cause-specific mortality among different socioeconomic classes, trends in these gaps over time, and recommendations for reducing inequalities in life expectancy in the future.

Description: The presenters will address innovations in health and wellness designed to mitigate and/or manage mortality risk. The presenters will briefly review the latest research on the leading causes of death and share ways that life insurers and insurtech partnerships are using technology, customer engagement and scientific advances to enhance/extend the lives of policyholders. The presenters will draw from industry research and reinsurer studies and from the latest initiatives in health and wellness innovations.

Description: A data format for mortality tables along with applications.

Description: After years of discussion and debate, PrinciplesBased Reserving (PBR) is finally a reality. Small insurance companies have a unique opportunity to decide between electing for the company-wide exemption or adopting the PBR methods. This article discusses the benefits and challenges of the options available to small insurers under VM-20 as well as best practices that have been found along the way.

Description: This article provides a very high level overview of accelerated underwriting programs and their history in the US marketplace. It then discusses setting up an actuarial control cycle for such products and some items related to risk management that are helpful in this setting. Pros and cons of retrospective studies, random holdouts, targeted holdouts and post issue analysis are discussed. A mathematical example of how to estimate the mortality impact of such programs from early emerging experience is provided.