Description: The values of life insurance and annuity liabilities move in opposite directions in response to a change in the underlying mortality. Natural hedging utilizes this to stabilize aggregate liability cash flows. Our study shows empirical evidence that insurers who utilize natural hedging also charge lower premiums than otherwise similar insurers. This indicates that insurers who are able to utilize natural hedging have a competitive advantage. In addition, we show how a mortality swap might be used to provide the benefits of natural hedging to a firm that writes only one of the lines of business.

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: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.

Description: This graph indicates the overall historical trend in life expectancy at age 65.

Description: A data format for mortality tables along with applications.

Description: The proposed new table, recommended as suitable for a new Group Annuity Reserve Valuation Standard, if accepted and adopted by regulators, would incorporate the use of generational mortality into statutory reserving requirements for group annuities for the first time. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.

Description: This report examines historical U.S. motor vehicle accident mortality experience by age, gender, region, and other factors.

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.

Description: Based on work performed by Bob Howard, a former member of RPEC, the SOA developed a spreadsheet-based program that allows users to create a customized mortality improvement scale using the RPEC_2014 model. The RPEC_O2_v2018 model found here utilizes the same projection methodology underpinning the RPEC_2014 model except that the historical rates have been developed using “order-2” Whittaker-Henderson graduation rather than “order-3”.