Description: The Reinsurance Section, Product Development Section and the Committee on Life Insurance Research are pleased to present results from a company practice survey of individual life insurance accelerated underwriting. Performed by a Milliman team led by Al Klein and Karen Rudolph, the study provides perspectives from both direct life insurance companies and reinsurers. Among the areas addressed include the structure of accelerated underwriting programs, how programs are monitored, how accelerated underwritten business is performing relative to expectations and how companies are considering accelerated underwriting cohorts in the context of VM-20 assumption setting.

Description: Guaranteed Issue mortality valuation tables, report, and definition.

Description: The Health Care Cost Trends Strategic Research Committee is looking for a research proposal that will examine the increased uptake of diabetes drugs on overall medical trends as well as the costs of individuals who are prescribed these drugs.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Predictive Analytics and Futurism Section, the Financial Reporting Section, the Investment Section and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries are pleased to release a new and improved version of the 2005 Society of Actuaries (SOA) Delphi study of four economic variables. Performed by Theodore J. Gordon, the research acquaints actuaries with the application of futures methods that could supplement traditional actuarial forecasting practices.

Description: Defining fairness for life insurance processes is complex and challenging as well as subjective. The Society of Actuaries Research Institute submits to the public discourse this summary of the challenges and complexities involved in trying to define fairness for life insurance processes in the United States.

Description: This study aims to explore the evolution of and trends in how consumers from younger generations understand, investigate, and purchase private insurance plans.

Description: The Mortality Improvement subgroup of the American Academy of Actuaries’ Life Experience Committee and the Society of Actuaries’ Preferred Mortality Oversight Group Valuation Basic Table Team has released a recommendation for the methodology to use to develop the set of improvement factors to be used in conjunction with the 2008 Valuation Basic table or the 2015 Valuation Basic table for AG-38 purposes for year-end 2020.

Description: An update of selected key graphs from the Key Statistics section of previous COVID-19 briefs.

Description: This report provides an educational background on the process of building predictive models, as well as a detailed presentation of the model results. Predictive models provide a method to capture variation by multiple variables and understand the relationship between these variables. This allows for a deeper understanding of key variables than is possible under a traditional approach.

Description: Dealing with more known unknowns? More scary knowns? Or unknown unknowns? What is the next unthinkable? What future events should actuaries actively be modelling and keep us up at night? The Catastrophe & Climate Strategic Research Program of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute (SOA) put forth a call for essays exploring these risks. The Program Steering Committee selected these essays submitted by Sam Gutterman and Max Rudolph to publish, and are awarding them each a prize of $500. The Catastrophe & Climate Strategic Research Program Steering Committee congratulates the authors and is happy to publish the winning essays on the SOA website.