Description: press release about blue ribbon panel

Description: Recent advances in mortality modeling have enabled applicant-specific quantification of mortality risk in life insurance applicants using laboratory and physical measurements. Relative to more conventional underwriting, this approach identifies a small population of significantly under-priced policy and a much larger, cross-subsidizing group whose risk is presently overestimated. Applicants placed in the highest percentile by this scoring methodology are more than 10X as likely to die in a given period as their demographic peers, and represent approximately 5% of short-term claims. Implications for product design are substantial in both the short- and long-term, as the possibilities for adverse selection grow, and the opportunity for fully individualized pricing raises the more distant prospect of products with as many rate classes as applicants.

Description: Highlights of the 2001 Manulife Reinsurance Mortality Study conducted in conjunction with the Reinsurance Section on the mortality experience of large amount and older age policies.

Description: Feature article discussing the Life Settlements business: recent growth, pricing, and future of the business.

Description: Future mortality improvement has been a common assumption in life insurance and annuity pricing and forecasting for many years. However, experience over the last decade suggests this might be an assumption that merits reconsideration in the United States. This article will take a closer look at factors that impact mortality improvement trends and discuss why insurers may want to reevaluate product designs to better manage the associated mortality risk. We then introduce a product idea with this in mind, where premiums are based on a life expectancy index and insurers share the risk (and opportunity) or mortality improvement with policyholders.

Description: An article from The Actuary that highlights the strategic importance of inter-company mortality studies. Broad-based mortality studies form the backbone of the life actuarial profession. However, few companies have sufficient exposure or deaths to construct their own mortality table. Even is some large companies have enough data, there is still a vast majority of companies that do not. Historically, the void has been filled by means of inter-company studies.