Description: This section presents book reviews and summarizes recent publications on subjects that include U.K. social insurance, financing of hospital care, state examinations of life companies, approximate valuation of life and health insurance, mortality forecasting, and valuing estate tax.

Description: Book reviews and summaries on a variety of subjects

Description: This section contains reviews for the following books, Introduction to the Mathematics of Demography by Robert Brown, A Tale of Two Captains by John Baynes and Hugh Maclean, Abolitionist, Actuary, Atheist: Elizur Wright and the Reform Impulse by Lawrence Goodheart, The Federal Data Base Finder by Matthew Lesko and the Guardian Life Insurance Company, 1860-1920, A History of a German-American Enterprise by Anita Rapone. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1991, Vol. 43.

Description: This paper presents considerably detailed death rates according to smoking habits and health status, based on the American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study I, which constitutes the largest body of data currently available for the study of smoking habits. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1987, Vol. 39.

Description: In this paper the authors discuss the official decennial Unites States Life Tables for 1979-81, presenting age-specific mortality rates and expectations of life. Mortality trends are examined going back to the first decennial tables published at the beginning of the century, and brief comparisons with mortality in other industrialized countries are made. The paper includes written discussion. From the 1985 Transactions Vol. 37.

Description: The paper analyzes recent individual annuity mortality experience, derives comparative annual mortality improvement rates and, in particular, examines in detail the 1976-86 experience in the most recent Report of the Individual Annuity Experience Committee. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.