Description: This article is a response to the article Current U.S. Ordinary Life Mortality by Doug Doll and Mike Jones. The author offers his interpretation of the mortality improvements observed between 1980-85 and 1983-88.

Description: This paper investigates the use of models of dependent mortality for determining annuity values. We discuss a broad class of parametric models using a bivariate survivorship function called a copula. Using data from a large insurance company to illustrate our methods, we calculate maximum likelihood estimates to calibrate the rnodel.

Description: This is the discussant comments for the concurrent Session 4B: Mortality Projections from the January 4-6, 2017 Living to 100 Symposium in Orlando.

Description: We ask whether we can find support for the previously reported upper limit of the force of mortality of 0.7, i.e. about the probability of tossing a fair coin.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 symposium, January 2002. This is a report of a study in which the Cox proportional hazard model, a widely used survival analysis tool, was applied to profiling the mortality of an insured advanced-age population. The data was derived from 14 US insurers. This data represents policies issued between 01/01/1997 and 12/31/2000 to policyholders of age 60 or older. The major study results include measures of mortality, variations by selected risk factors, estimated mortality experience of the underlying population, and a comparison of mortality experience estimated by direct calculation, the Society of Actuaries’ SOA 1990-95 mortality study, and our extended Cox modeling technique.

Description: As a life reinsurer, understanding mortality risk is mission critical. Superior models of mortality risk lead to more competitive pricing in profitable market segments and more efficient use of capital. Surprisingly, modern statistical tools such as predictive modeling have not previously been used to model mortality data to gain this edge. In this paper, we present the use of a predictive modeling technique called projection pursuit regression PPR to model mortality data. We first describe the process of creating a PPR model using inter-company mortality data collected by the Individual Life Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries, and present the resulting model. We then discuss the process of using this model as a starting point for creating a more detailed PPR model of internal company mortality data.

Description: Abstract: The percentage of the population who are obese has grown dramatically worldwide over the last several decades, although stabilizing recently in the United States. Studies have found the effects on mortality to be inconsistent and controversial because of methodological differences and the complexity of the relationship between obesity and mortality. This paper discusses this relationship and sheds light on the likely effects of this epidemic. Issues associated with the so-called obesity-mortality paradox, where mortality experience is lower for those individuals who are overweight and in some who are obese compared with the mortality of those in the normal weight category, are examined. Although certain recently reported studies of the relationship between mortality and obesity indicate that obesity is related to a reduced percent of additional mortality, this may in part be due to the shorter average time that those currently obese have been exposed to their condition. Nevertheless, the amount of health care costs and rates of disability associated with being obese are significant, contributing to the increase in overall health care costs as they become more numerous and age. Although obesity is being addressed with a great deal of activity and publicity, they will continue to prove challenging for individuals and society to manage and overcome.

Description: This is the informal discussion transcript for Concurrent Session 2A: Drivers of Future Mortality for the January 4-6, 2017 Living to 100 Symposium in Orlando.

Description: This is the informal discussion transcript from Session 3A: Mortality Inequality; Impact of Socioeconomic Factors from the 2017 Living to 100 Symposium.

Description: We employ a framework for the classification of mortality evolution patterns to HMD data. We find both supra-regional patterns and outliers from global trends.