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: The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 is recognized as having generally taken place in three waves, starting in the northern spring and summer of 1918. This pattern of three waves, however, was not universal: in some locations influenza seems to have persisted into or returned in 1920. The recorded statistics of influenza morbidity and mortality are likely to be a significant understatement. Limitations of these data can include nonregistration, missing records, misdiagnosis, and nonmedical certification, and may also vary greatly between locations. Further research has seen the consistent upward revision of the estimated global mortality of the pandemic, which a 1920s calculation put in the vicinity of 21.5 million. A 1991 paper revised the mortality as being in the range 24.7-39.3 million. This paper suggests that it was of the order of 50 million. However, it must be acknowledged that even this vast figure may be substantially lower than the real toll, perhaps as much as 100 percent understated.

Description: Discussion of the separate and joint effects of obesity and diabetes on disability and mortality, and ways these effects can be used to improved insurance pricing and reserving, reverse the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, and improve current projections of disability and mortality risks.

Description: This article describes some of the drawbacks to the assessment of longevity risk adopted by most practitioners within the UK together with an initiative that provides a platform for an alternative approach that is both (a) more forward-looking in nature and (b) can complement current practices.

Description: A recent Society of Actuaries study calculates safety and stability for current Long Term Care Insurance premiums.

Description: A data format for mortality tables along with applications.

Description: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.

Description: Review of a new text on mortality measurement, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Robert W. Batten.

Description: Second article in a series on how to use predictive analytics to improve the development of long-term care projection assumptions.

Description: This paper is from Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1955 Volume 7, Number 17. The author notes that in mortality studies the ‘natural’ unit for exposures and deaths is number of lives, but often more insight is gained by use of other weights, such as face amount. In this paper, the author develops a method which, ‘by a combination of exposed to risk formulas, provides a comparatively simple procedure to permit consideration of weights which vary during the observation period.’