Description: The purpose of this note is to show how certain formulas of life contingencies can be derived almost painlessly under the uniform distribution of deaths assumption.

Description: There are three commonly used methods for compiling exposure and death data for use in obtaining crude mortality rates. They are lives, policies and amounts of insurance. This paper investigates the properties of estimators based on lives, amounts and robust alternatives. It is concluded that lives provide the best estimator, even when there is a moderate dependence of mortality rates on amounts of insurance. Presented at the Fourteenth Actuarial Research Conference, lowa City, lowa, September 6, 1979.