Description: This article discusses the proper slope of mortality tables, especially at the high attained ages.

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: 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 paper describes a cost-benefit analysis to determine the value of electronic health records (EHRs) in life insurance accelerated underwriting programs. Sample cases from a carrier were underwritten pre-EHR and post-EHR and the mortality savings estimates from risk class changes using EHRs was compared to procurement costs. Results were developed to cover a range of scenarios. Factors to consider for carriers evaluating the cost-effectiveness of using EHRs in their own accelerated underwriting programs are also described.

Description: This paper applies the research in Prospect Theory of Kahneman and Tversky to explain why sales of annuities lag sales of life insurance products. The author theorizes that life insurance is easier to sell because customers perceive themselves to be in the domain of losses, while potential annuity customers perceive themselves to be in the domain of gains. Kahneman and Tversky showed us that people are mostly risk averse in the domain of gains and risk seeking in the domain of losses. Purchase of an annuity or life product is a risky investment. Customers will find it easier to take the risk in the life insurance domain of losses than the annuity domain of gains. The author then proposes a hybrid life annuity product that might address both mortality and longevity risk in one product that would allow both products to be more competitive than stand-alone products.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 7. This article discusses the activities and goals of the Product Development Section of the SOA. Future activities will include joint sessions with other sections since product development issues sometimes relate to financial reporting. reinsurance, investments and nontraditional marketing.

Description: Chairperson’s column describing activities the Product Development section has undertaken to date.

Description: This article is the first in a series of articles on insurance applicant mortality risk analytics. From Small Talk Newsletter, Issue 37, January 2012.

Description: The analytical laws of mortality such as Gompertz and Makeham are often used by actuaries to describe the survival distributions. Numerical approaches to evaluate features such as mean and variance of these distributions may be very difficult not to mention the characteristics of their life contingent functions.

Description: This article provides a short history of the correction procedures previously developed to address compliance failures and the shortcomings of those procedures under sections 101f and 7702, laying the foundation for a sea change in the correction process.