Description: A study of disability experience examines cost burden and degree of disability, and how these measures vary across different subpopulations. This article summarizes a presentation given at the Society of Actuaries’ Living to 100: Survival to Advanced Ages International Symposium held on Jan. 7–9, 2008 in Orlando, Florida. An abstract of the author's paper was presented in the September 2008 issue of Long-Term Care News.

Description: An economic analysis of bariatric surgery and health care costs supports the case for health plans to cover these procedures.

Description: Discussion of the separate and joint effects of obesity and diabetes on disability and mortality, and ways these effects can be used to improved insurance pricing and reserving, reverse the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, and improve current projections of disability and mortality risks.

Description: Looks at free and inexpensive resources for the novice in predictive analytics, covering the data analysis theory as well as the most commonly used languages/software used in the field.

Description: A general introduction about predictive modeling in insurance applications. Some basic models are discussed, such as Generalized Linear Model(GLM), Calssification and Regression Tree Model. Other models are also briefly introduced, including data clustering, neural networks and support vector machine.

Description: Review of a research project, co-sponsored by the SOA, which examined 83 organizations and over 150 programs that measure the quality and efficiency of hospitals and physicians.

Description: An introduction of predictive modeling techniques that are applicable to insurance industry, including generalized linear model (GLM) and classification and regression tree model(CART). Other models such as data clustering, neural network, and support vector machine (SVM), are also briefly discussed.

Description: A closer look at family tier factor rating assumptions, and how well they reflect actual claim cost data.

Description: This article describes a method that can be useful when re-fitting a risk score model to a population of only moderate size. Learn how to use concepts like ridge regression to train a model with partial credibility.