Description: 2021 Life Meeting - Session 7D: Emerging Trends in Lapse and Mortality for Life Products 9.1.21 Recording

Description: In summer 2021, the SOA Research Institute’s Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program sponsored a webcast examining individual life and group life emerging mortality in a COVID-19 world. Since then, Delta and Omicron coronavirus variants have fueled waves of the virus in the U.S., boosting the total number of COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic to near the 1 million mark. Hear an update and insights into how the life insured population is faring during COVID-19 by discussing the findings from two recent SOA Research Institute initiatives. LIMRA, Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and TAI have collaborated to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the individual life insurance industry’s mortality experience. Additionally, the SOA Research Institute has surveyed insurers to gather a high-level view of U.S. Group Term Life Insurance mortality results during the COVID-19 pandemic, comparing them to pre-pandemic mortality levels. The Group Term Life industry mortality results will be presented with monthly data through March 2022.

Description: Hear about some applications using quantile regression-derived individual and group claim distributions and how they may be used in various traditional health care modeling situations. The session will not focus on the technical use of quantile regression to obtain estimates of claim distributions, but more so is intended to focus on the uses of the distributions in actuarial modeling and the additive framework in assessing claims distributions. Presenters will show how actuaries can better assess risks by focusing on the individual- and group-specific claims distributions as opposed to traditional point-estimate-centric models.

Description: Health care has changed rapidly over the past couple of years. The pandemic has shifted consumer behavior in how and where they receive health care as well as consumer attitudes toward health care. Payers continue to design innovative solutions in responses to their patient’s needs and expectations. These changes in consumer behaviors and the responses by payers are expected to impact both health care cost and utilization. Discuss changes in health care that have emerged due to the pandemic and how they are expected to influence actuarial assumptions. Explore epidemiological models commonly used in the industry, the considerations when using these models, as well as the challenges with regards to gathering and interpreting relevant experience data. By attending this session, you will be able to: Identify shifts in consumer behavior that have emerged from the pandemic and describe how payers are responding to new patient expectations. Discuss how these post-pandemic changes by consumers and payers influence medical spending. Determine which actuarial assumptions are impacted and how and if the impact is expected to be temporary or permanent. Discuss considerations taken by actuaries and challenges faced when modelling actuarial assumptions post pandemic.

Description: The session will highlight trends in recent industry mortality and lapse studies that have been conducted, including areas where individual companies typically have limited data. The sources of data feature SOA studies as well as other industry studies conducted by consultants and/or reinsurers. Gain an understanding of current drivers of mortality and lapse experience for life insurance evidenced in industry studies, and an understanding of available data to supplement experience in areas where you may have limited internal experience.

Description: Focus on how innovative health care organizations develop their value proposition for their intended buyers. Presenters will share information about their specific solution and the methods used to derive credible savings estimates, ROI, and performance guarantees. Learn about data utilized, the methods deployed, advantages, disadvantages, and buyers' reaction. This session is expected to be technical, highly informative, and interactive with audience members.

Description: This session will present results of the most recent SOA/LIMRA studies of variable and fixed-indexed annuity policyholder behavior including withdrawal behavior, guaranteed living benefit elections and surrender activity. Conducted annually since 2006, a discussion on the results of these studies show how they have changed over time, as well as areas where the analysis will need to change or expand. After that, the presenters will focus on dynamic lapse for hot money businesses, which is an important topic for fixed deferred annuity. Key takeaways from this area will include an understanding how to differentiate between hot money and warm money, the different formulas used in the industry, and how to adjust an asset portfolio to protect against the risks associated with hot money businesses.

Description: Session 9B: Actuaries and Technology: Perspectives on Actuarial Workflow Automation The life insurance industry has experienced unprecedented growth in modernization efforts, with special attention paid to automating actuarial workflows. Companies are creating processes that are more scalable and maintainable, helping actuaries meet strict deadlines and deliver meaningful information to stakeholders. Discuss practical examples of automation, potential compositions of the modern actuarial toolkit, and different ways actuaries and technology teams interact during implementation and production states. Examine how automation can help actuarial teams shift from a quarterly to a monthly valuation process by overcoming challenges in traditional actuarial processes-long run times, the need for highly specialized legacy software skills, and inadequate control. Shifting to a monthly schedule can increase alignment on company objectives, deepen insurers' understanding of their business, and improve strategic decision-making. Leave with new ways of thinking about technology, from day-to-day best practices to full-scale actuarial transformation. By attending the session, you will: - Explain and understand the benefits of automating actuarial workflows with the purpose of operating on a monthly, rather than quarterly basis. - Describe the categories and purposes of several kinds of automation and supporting tools that might be used to accomplish this. - Understand different actuarial IT operating models and consider the application of such strategies at your organization. - Identify best practices for implementing automation based on the presented case studies.

Description: Term products exhibit a wide range of behavior as policyholders can elect different term periods and conversion options. While term products have been around for decades, it's only recently that longer level term products are reaching the end of the level term period. Term conversions have historically been an afterthought and are rarely modeled. Discuss the use of predictive modeling techniques such as LASSO regression and cross-validation to build models for level term lapses and post-level term shock lapses, as well as the extrapolation of experience for shorter term products to longer term products (e.g., extrapolating 20-year term experience and applying to 30-year term). Explore the use of traditional techniques to develop term conversion rates and a framework for modeling the assumption. Challenges and limitations of setting lapse and conversion rates will be discussed. By attending the session, you will: - Understand the complexities of term policyholder behavior. - Understand the challenges in developing and implementing assumptions for lapses and conversions. - Understand the application of traditional and predictive modeling techniques for term policyholder behavior.

Description: Oliver Wyman will share results from their recent Fixed and Index Annuity experience studies. Discuss fixed annuity dynamic lapse experience and learn about cross impacts of mortality and lapse on GLWB utilization. By attending the session, you will: - Understandg industry experience trends. - Comprehendindustry dynamic lapse experience for fixed and index annuity products. - Learn about areas of cross impacts of mortality, lapses and GLWB utilization.