Description: Abstracts of recent articles of interest to health actuaries

Description: A study of disability experience examines cost burden and degree of disability, and how these measures vary across different subpopulations. This article summarizes a presentation given at the Society of Actuaries’ Living to 100: Survival to Advanced Ages International Symposium held on Jan. 7–9, 2008 in Orlando, Florida. An abstract of the author's paper was presented in the September 2008 issue of Long-Term Care News.

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

Description: The article discovers that mortality is higher for females than for males at higher ages, and suggests "stress" as the explanation. It then discusses mental illness research, including recovery therefrom.

Description: Pricing longevity swap reinsurance transactions consists of a number of different actuarial tasks, each of which hides potential pitfalls. The article outlines the pricing process, which includes a detailed analysis of current mortality experience of the portfolio to be transferred, choice and calibration of an appropriate model for mortality improvement trends and the calculation of a risk margin which reflects the uncertainty associated with the pricing best-estimate, which includes mis-estimation risk, model risk, longevity basis risk and stochastic uncertainty.

Description: The work of the Society of Actuaries’ Committee on Post-Retirement Needs and Risks—including focus groups and Risks and Process of Retirement Surveys—offers important insights into when, how and why people retire.

Description: This article delves into a new line of statistical thinking of the author, that may be useful for product development actuaries. The key concept is how product design can produce products that diversify quickly, meaning that the company can be confident of a profitable product line, based on fewer sales than might be true for other designs.