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: Compares how other industries (in this case, Fast Food) researches and tests new products. Provides examples of how the insurance industry can efficiently research and test new product concepts before going to market.

Description: his article contains a summary of some of the presentations given at the 2015 SOA Annual Meeting & Exhibit, held October 11–14, in Austin.

Description: Consideration of the LTC Actuarial Standard of Practice

Description: Letter From The President column for the December 2012/January 2013 edition of The Actuary magazine—an excerpt from Tonya Manning’s presidential acceptance speech at the SOA 2012 Annual Meeting.

Description: The author explores and argues against the “evolution of thinking” and the position that actuarial thinking is a blend of all three modes of thinking, as discussed by Dave Ingram in the February/March 2012 issue of The Actuary.

Description: An interview with Jennifer Gillespie, chairperson of SOA Public Policy Strategy Task Force.

Description: A summary of regulatory developments related to principle-based reserving.

Description: A proposal to reform the health care provider payment system through: a national fee schedule, shifting more reimbursements to primary care providers, better integration of hospital & physician fees, evidence based care, pay for performance, and a better provider risk sharing mechanism.

Description: Introduction to population health, a collaborative discipline that seeks to leverage all the determinants of health personal behaviors, medical care and the public health infrastructure, as well as the social and economic context at the community and national level to maximize the health of populations.