Description: After years of discussion and debate, PrinciplesBased Reserving (PBR) is finally a reality. Small insurance companies have a unique opportunity to decide between electing for the company-wide exemption or adopting the PBR methods. This article discusses the benefits and challenges of the options available to small insurers under VM-20 as well as best practices that have been found along the way.

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: An article from The Actuary that highlights the strategic importance of inter-company mortality studies. Broad-based mortality studies form the backbone of the life actuarial profession. However, few companies have sufficient exposure or deaths to construct their own mortality table. Even is some large companies have enough data, there is still a vast majority of companies that do not. Historically, the void has been filled by means of inter-company studies.

Description: Results of a Survey of JRMS members re claims changes due to COVID

Description: This article discusses the concept of Conservation of Mortality ("Conservation"). Conservation is the modeling principle that ensures consistency between assumptions of the total mortality of a population and mortality among population subsets. This article discusses the use cases for Conservation and the many ways that one could implement it in a model or an experience study. This article also discusses the potential issues that arise when using Conservation, and how one might solve or alleviate these issues.

Description: This article is an introduction to the topic of mortality projections and their impact on social security systems. The article reviews two life expectancy graphs and overall trends in life expectancy by gender at birth and age 65 in the United States, Canada and the UK.

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 Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) and Society of Actuaries (SOA) engaged RGA Reinsurance Company (RGA) to undertake a research project on level premium term life insurance products with a particular focus on the magnitude and impact of the “shock lapse” at the end of the level premium period. This project is similar to the SOA-sponsored research completed by RGA in 2014 for USA business.