Description: This paper is the final report in a project commissioned by the Society of Actuaries Social Security Committee. The paper considers a variety of possible risk classification factors that could be used in estimating the value of any mortality based benefit for retirees. As many countries consider mandatory individual retirement accounts as their answer to a secure Social Security system, the question arises as to whether all workers can get true 'market value' annuities when they retire. It is clear today that private sector life annuities are priced assuming that the applicant is healthy-very healthy. Very little underwriting or risk classification now exists in the individual annuity marketplace. This paper reviews 45 recent research papers that look at factors that affect mortality after retirement. In particular, factors that seem to be important in predicting retirement mortality include: age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, income, occupation, marital status, religion, health behaviors, smoking, alcohol, and obesity. For each factor, this paper gives highlights relative to the named factor of the impact expected from that variable as described in the 45 reviewed research papers.

Description: In the past, discussion of actuarial education has focused on curriculum content [what is to be learned] and mode of delivery [university course versus part-time correspondence course]. Little attention has been paid to how students learn, and how that learning can be facilitated to develop actuaries with the knowledge, skills and values the profession needs. This paper deals with the university-related content of a more comprehensive paper prepared by the authors for the 1993 Convention of The Institute of Actuaries of Australia. It concentrates on students' learning in the undergraduate actuarial program at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, but it is likely that many of its findings and conclusions would apply equally to university actuarial courses elsewhere. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 1.