Description: This research report discusses simplified issue underwriting in life insurance. It examines recent developments, characteristics, challenges, current practices, assumptions and data elements.

Description: The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) recently released their annual health care cost and utilization report on February 13, 2020. This report illustrates employer group commercial health care costs and trends from 2014 – 2018.

Description: The Committee on Life Insurance Mortality and Underwriting Surveys of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute sent companies a survey in May of 2019 on mortality improvement practices. Note this survey was completed prior to the onset of COVID-19, so that issue was not addressed in this survey. The purpose of the survey was to examine mortality improvement practices with respect to life insurance and annuity pricing and financial projections in both the U.S. and Canada.

Description: Mortality Improvement Scale MP-2016 is an update to Mortality Improvement Scale MP-2015 that includes three additional years of historical U.S. population mortality data and modification of two input values designed to improve the model’s year-over-year financial stability. The page includes the updated Scale MP-2016, the accompanying Scale MP-2016 document, and an updated RPEC_2014_v2016 Model Implementation Tool for actuaries to create their own mortality improvement scales using RPEC’s model and the updated data set.

Description: Call for essays that provide practical applications of in-depth research papers that will be published in the upcoming edition of the NAAJ.

Description: Hardly a day goes by without a feature story about the latest reverberation from the expanding use of Artificial Intelligence/Large Language Models (tools) in a variety of settings. The pace of use (and misuse) of these tools, such as ChatGPT and Bard, has been explosive and shows no sign of abating. Many experts would argue we are on the cusp of a permanent paradigm shift in teaching/academics and overall application of technology. With these issues in mind, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute’s Aging and Retirement program is interested in an exploration of this topic from a variety of perspectives. The result of this effort is intended to provide a useful resource for readers to become well-grounded on the issues surrounding the impact of these tools in a retirement context and set the stage for future research.

Description: The SOA is interested in understanding how companies are performing scenario analysis, thinking through how various stakeholders (regulators, general public, competitors) could be reacting to a large-scale large-impact event over a multi-year period.

Description: This study would assess the impact of recent patient care innovation(s) on health care and the health insurance industry.

Description: In 2024, 27 disasters in the United States resulted in damages exceeding $1 billion. These disasters included two winter storms, one wildfire event, one drought/heatwave event, one flooding event, six tornado outbreaks, 11 severe weather/hail events and five hurricanes. The costliest of these events was Hurricane Helene, which resulted in 219 deaths and cost $79.6 billion , although the early 2025 wildfires in the Los Angeles, California area threaten to exceed this economic cost. In Canada, insured catastrophic losses totaled C$8.5 billion in 2024, making it the costliest year on record for the country. Outside the United States and Canada, Cyclone Chido killed more than 1,000 people, a heatwave in Bangladesh impacted 33 million people and a drought in Columbia has had a significant impact on the economy there .

Description: The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into actuarial practice has accelerated dramatically in recent years, potentially transforming how actuaries approach traditional tasks and creating new opportunities for professional growth. This evolution has generated significant enthusiasm about increased efficiency, deeper analytical capabilities, and novel insights that were previously unattainable. Simultaneously, it has raised legitimate concerns about skill obsolescence, appropriate governance, control limitations, and the changing nature of actuarial judgement in an AI-augmented environment. While much has been written about the theoretical possibilities of AI in insurance and risk management, there remains a gap in our collective understanding: the actual, day-to-day experiences of practicing actuaries as they navigate this technological shift. There is an interest in learning from others’ experiences in implementing AI tools, realizing benefits, encountering challenges, and understanding how AI is altering actuarial workflow.