Description: U.S. Drug Overdose Crisis—Past, Present, and Future: A Dive into Trends and Drivers of Substance-Related Mortality OCTOBER | 2025

Description: Obesity rates in the United States have climbed to historic highs, with nearly 42% of adults now classified as obese—a trend with significant implications for the health care system. Among Medicare-aged individuals, obesity is strongly associated with chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal disorders, all of which increase health care utilization and spending. As costs continue to rise, understanding the financial impact of obesity management is increasingly important for policymakers, payers and providers. This analysis uses detailed traditional Medicare claims and eligibility data to examine how obesity levels relate to health care expenditures and how costs change as members move between different diagnosed obesity categories over time

Description: This article explores the evolving role of assumption management in the life insurance industry. The article highlights how behavioral, economic, and demographic assumptions are critical to pricing, forecasting, and explaining financial results, yet many insurers still struggle with fragmented practices and outdated processes. Drawing on survey insights from 15 U.S. insurers, the authors illustrate persistent challenges in governance, data integration, and automation. They argue for a more holistic, technology-enabled operating model centered on centralized assumption repositories. Such repositories provide a single source of truth, enable automated ingestion into models, support sensitivity testing, and enhance governance and transparency across actuarial, finance, and risk functions. The article offers guiding principles and design considerations for building scalable repositories that improve efficiency, consistency, and decision-making. Ultimately, it positions assumption management modernization not as a technical upgrade but as a strategic imperative to unlock clarity, agility, and competitive advantage in a complex market.

Description: The article is a chairperson’s update from Arthur da Silva on the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Emerging Topics Community, written to recap the past year’s accomplishments and outline potential priorities for the year ahead. Its intent is both informational while inviting community member participation and ideas for the year ahead. It also provides insight into the new AI subgroup and how it operates to help community members and other community leaders understand what it delivers and how to get involved.

Description: "This session will explore the critical challenges and solutions surrounding algorithmic fairness in the life insurance industry. The presenters will delve into the fundamental mechanisms of model bias, examining how predictive algorithms can yield outcomes that systematically discriminate against certain groups through flawed machine learning processes, erroneous assumptions, or biased data. Participants will gain insights into the various manifestations of bias in insurance models and understand their profound implications for both consumers and insurers. Real-world case studies and examples from the insurance industry will illustrate these concepts, while a discussion of recent regulatory developments will provide context for compliance requirements. This session is essential for actuaries, data scientists, and insurance professionals committed to developing and maintaining ethical, unbiased predictive models."

Description: The Individual Life Experience Committee continues to unlock valuable insights from the VM51 data as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) releases it. In this session, attendees will get a preview of individual life mortality patterns during COVID-19 for more than 100 companies in the NAIC data from 2020 to 2021, the first years of the pandemic. Attendees will also see early findings from the Committee's latest initiatives. These include integrating predictive analytics into its reporting products, assessing the impact of simplified and accelerated underwriting, exploring joint life mortality, evaluating company differences, and continuing its research into old-age patterns. Attendees will leave the session armed with additional knowledge for assessing best-estimate mortality for valuation.