Description: Book Review from The Actuary, September 1989 – Volume 23, No. 8. Actuarial Mathematics by N. Bowers. H. Gerber. J. Hickman, D. Jones and C. Nesbitt. Published by the Society of Actuaries, 1986.

Description: Consumer groups fear that the use of genetic testing information in insurance underwriting might lead to the creation of an underclass of individuals who cannot obtain insurance. Thus, these groups want to ban insurance companies from accessing genetic test results. Insurers contend that such a ban might lead to adverse selection that could threaten their financial solvency. To investigate the potential effect of adverse selection in a term life insurance market, a discrete-time, discrete-state, Markov chain is used to track the evolution of 12 closed cohorts of women, differentiated by family history of breast and ovarian cancer and age-at-issue of a 20-year annually renewable term life insurance policy. The insurance demand behavior of these women is tracked, incorporating elastic demand for insurance. During the 20-year period, women may get tested for BRCA 1/2 mutations. Each year, the insurer calculates profits/losses to date and expected future benefit payouts which determines the following year’s premium schedule. At the end of each policy year, women can change their life insurance benefit, influenced by their testing status and premium changes. Adverse selection could result from differentiated: 1. benefits following test results, 2. lapse rates according to test results, and 3. reactions to price increases. It is concluded that with realistic estimates of behavioral parameters, adverse selection should be a manageable problem for insurers. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.

Description: This report presents multiple book reviews with chapter by chapter detail: 'Our Yesterdays: the History of the Actuarial Profession in North America, 1809-1979' by E. J. Moorhead, 'Actuarial Mathematics' by Bowers, Gerber, Hickman, Jones and Nesbitt, 'Actuarial Projections for the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Program in the United States of America' by Andrews and Beekman, 'An Introduction to the Mathematics of Finance' by McCutcheon and Scott, 'On the Trail of Actuaries in Texas, 1844-1964' by Friedman and Friedman. 'From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1988, Vol. 40, Pt. 2.