Description: This abstract describes a presentation that uses a dataset provided by a private insurance company which contained demographic, cost, and diagnostic data which allows the determination of which factors drove costs up and how these factors will affect the total cost for future years.

Description: The author attempts to weave together biological and environmental explanations into the mathematical approaches developed over the past two centuries so as to, in the words of two earlier authors from the actuarial profession, reground the relationship of actuarial science with cellular biology and gerontology. Also examined is the extent to which increasing wealth and higher standards of education and health contribute to happiness.