Description: Recently, there has been an increase in the product development of simplified issue products in the United States. In the past two years, Gen Re LifeHealth has reviewed over 40 such products, ranging from vanilla direct-marketed products to high-end single premium immediate annuity SPIA paid universal life products. From Small Talk Newsletter, June 2005, Issue No. 24.

Description: Near the end of a pension plan's lifespan, after benefit accruals have ceased and the plan has reached fully funded status, a plan sponsor has the option to begin the plan termination process immediately or to maintain the plan for an extended period of time (often referred to as 'hibernation' as an alternative to termination). While immediate termination appeals to some plan sponsors, others choose hibernation for a number of reasons, including paternalism, fiduciary obligations, perceived cost differentials or simple inertia.

Description: This predictive modeling paper, “Household Life Insurance Demand – A Multivariate Two-Part Model is one of a collection of essays that examine how existing or new methods or models can be applied to the life insurance industry.

Description: This paper uses the estimated unreported deaths in earlier periods to adjust the current policies in force and produces unreported values that are more consistent with the actual number of unreported deaths.

Description: This presentation describes a comprehensive risk analysis of participating life insurance products with a particular focus on the impact of product design.

Description: This abstract describes a paper that provides a quantitative framework in which two risk management strategies are mathematically formulated.

Description: Life insurance products in China need to evolve as insurance regulations change.

Description: This article attempts to dispel some of the “myths” around the perceived unique nature of Asian markets. Part I addresses the nature of the markets, the business drivers and the issues and challenges being encountered. Then, in Part II, from a risk management perspective, the current situation is reviewed, issues identified concerning the future development of appropriate skills to tackle the inevitable rapid growth in customers under management and the anticipated diversification in terms of product coverage and distribution approaches.

Description: This paper explores how molecular biology, specifically epigenetics, may impact the life insurance industry, and considers the effects of utilizing epigenetic biomarkers for underwriting.

Description: Using recently updated data from the United States Mortality Database (USMDB, usa.mortality.org), this report presents an overview of historical mortality trends in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia for the period 1959-2018.