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Life Insurance Research Reports

If you’re looking for research projects and reports on life insurance, you’ve come to the right place. The SOA offers research, authored by an individual or a team of authors, for download in just a few clicks.

2024

  • Navigating Global Insurance Demand Trends
    March
    This report explores the behavioral factors influencing insurance purchase among Gen Z and Millennials for forward-looking purposes, leveraging a rich dataset spanning 22 markets across six continents.

2023

  • The Mortality Improvement Model, MIM-2021-v4
    October
    Different mortality projection methodologies are utilized by actuaries across applications and practice areas. As a result, the MIM Advisory Group developed a single framework to serve as a consistent base for practitioners in projecting mortality improvement.
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  • Rating Agency Perspectives on Insurance Company Capital
    August
    The SOA Research Institute along with the Corporate Finance & Enterprise Risk Management Curriculum Committee, Financial Reporting Section, and Individual Life & Annuity Curriculum Committee are pleased to make available a research report that aids students and practitioners with their understanding of the rating agencies as they affect the insurance industry.
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  • Perceptions of Younger Generations on Risk and Insurance
  • April
  • This study aims to explore the evolution of and trends in how consumers from younger generations understand, investigate, and purchase private insurance plans.

2022

  • 2022 Mortality Improvement Survey Report
    December
    This report summarizes the results of the 2022 Mortality Improvement Survey examining mortality improvement practices of life and annuity companies in the U.S. and Canada as of year-end 2021. The survey focused on the use of mortality improvement and how it has changed for financial projection and pricing modeling following the initial stages of COVID-19.
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  • Overview of Nonguaranteed Elements (NGEs)
    November
    Non-guaranteed elements are parameters of life insurance and annuity polices that are not fixed when the policy is issued but may be changed from time to time by the insurance company. They emerged in the United States and other countries as features of Universal Life and similar products designed to make insurance more competitive in an environment where fully guaranteed products did not have sufficient flexibility to respond to rapidly changing conditions. This overview covers professional guidance, regulations and practical issues with reviewing and revising non-guaranteed parameters.
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  • U.S. Insurance Company Earnings Review, Second Quarter 2022
    August
    In the second quarter of 2022, publicly traded life insurers reported some of their best financial results since the pandemic began. COVID-19-related claims fell sharply in many product categories. Sales, which had taken a big hit, showed significant improvement as well, though not always to pre-pandemic levels. Sales activity was enough, however, for industry executives to report confidently in their quarterly conference calls that in this regard the worst consequences of the pandemic are over.
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  • Registered Index-Linked Annuities
    August
    This report was prepared to provide an overview of Registered Index-Linked Annuities for use in the educational curriculum of the Society of Actuaries. It presents general principles and highlights major differences from other types of deferred annuities offered by life insurance companies in the United States.
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  • COVID-19 and the Short-Term Impact on Future U.S. Mortality
    August
    As results emerged showing the influence of COVID-19 on recent mortality, the Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committee (MLPSC) began to ponder what it means for the future. To gather insights into what the future may hold, a panel of 59 experts of varying backgrounds participated in a survey examining how COVID-19 might affect future U.S. general population mortality.
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  • Cause-of-Death Contributions to Socioeconomic Inequalities in Mortality in the United States
    June
    This study of socioeconomic inequalities in mortality builds on a previous report in which we identified a large and growing gradient in life expectancy between 1982 and 2019 across U.S. counties classified into 10 socioeconomically homogeneous categories. In this report, we seek to identify the particular causes of death contributing to the growing disadvantage in mortality between populations in the least and most affluent deciles as previously defined.
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  • Structured Settlement Annuities
    March
    This report describes the main features of structured settlement annuities in North America and current actuarial practices and issues related to this product. It was prepared for use in the educational curriculum of the Society of Actuaries.
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  • Mechanics of Dividends
    March
    This paper concerns policyholder dividends on traditional participating life insurance products in regulatory contexts similar to those in the United States and Canada. This paper also touches on annuity products. It was prepared for use in the educational curriculum of the Society of Actuaries. Dividend actuaries seeking references to writings on policyholder dividends to refresh their perspective may also find it useful.

2021

  • Obesity Trends and the Impact on Morbidity and Mortality Costs
    December

    The Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committee (MLPSC)  is pleased to present new research on obesity trends in the U.S. and Canada. This report examines the latest trends in obesity prevalence. Using this information along with cost information gathered from a review of literature, an estimate of the economic burden of obesity in the U.S. and Canada is determined.

  • Analysis of Historical U.S. Population Mortality
    September
    The Mortality & Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committees is pleased to present a new report examining mortality improvement drivers in the U.S. for the period 1959-2016. The study identifies significant U.S. mortality improvement/deterioration trends since 1959 including, but not limited to, those described in the SOA report, Components of Historical Mortality Improvement, using cause-of-death and other relevant data sources to quantify the likely degree of causality.
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  • Interstate Variations in Mortality in the United States, 1959-2018
    The Mortality & Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committees is pleased to present a new report examining mortality differentials by state. Using recently updated data from the United States Mortality Database, 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.
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  • Modeling and Forecasting Cause-of-Death Mortality by Socioeconomic Factors
    Sponsored by the Research Expanding Boundaries Pool, this study enhances existing research on modeling and forecasting cause-of-death mortality. Authored by a Milliman team led by Alexandre Boumezoued, the report provides a toolkit for actuaries and others to model and forecast mortality by cause and socioeconomic factors.
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  • Mortality Improvement Model, MIM-2021
    April
    Learn about a consistent approach to projecting mortality improvement.
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  • 2020 Excess Deaths in the U.S. General Population by Age and Sex
    This document describes an effort to measure the deaths in the US population relative to pre-pandemic expectations. The actual deaths used are as reported by the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) and we consider several different methods for setting the expectations, adjusting for the estimated mix by age, sex, and time of the year (seasonality).

2020

  • Mortality By Socioeconomic Category
    November
    This SOA-sponsored research report presents mortality analysis and rate estimates for the United States by year from 1999 through 2018, separately by socioeconomic quintile and decile. Details on the development of the estimates are summarized in the report. The life tables by socioeconomic category are available for download, and some of the results are presented in online graphs and maps.
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  • Principle-Based Reserves Simplified Methods
    July
    The Society of Actuaries Smaller Insurance Company Section, the Financial Reporting Section, and the Committee on Life Insurance Research are pleased to make available new research investigating simplified methods for determining reserves under VM-20.
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  • Life Reinsurance Treaty Recapture Provisions
    June
    The Reinsurance Section and the Product Development Section are pleased to make available a new report examining industry perspectives on life reinsurance treaty recapture provisions.
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  • Projections of COVID-19 Hospitalizations and Deaths, Updated April 24, 2020
    April
    Since the outbreak began in January, numerous research groups throughout the world have developed models to forecast the number of deaths that could result from COVID-19. Dr. Thomas McAndrew and Dr. Nicholas Reich of the University of Massachusetts Amherst have, on a weekly basis beginning in mid-February, surveyed experts who are separately engaged in efforts to model the outbreak. This brief looks at these models.
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  • Macroeconomics-Based Economic Scenario Generation
    April

    The Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Section and the Joint Risk Management Research Committee are pleased to make available new research introducing actuaries and others to dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models, a type of macroeconomic model.  

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  • Connecting Emerging COVID-19 Data to Insured Claims
    April
    Over the past month, the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions on how this outbreak will impact life insurance industry claims. This report pulls emerging U.S. COVID-19 hospitalization data and deaths obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVIDView, a Weekly Surveillance Summary of U.S. COVID-19 activity, and compares it to data from past U.S. influenza seasons obtained from the CDC’s Flu Activity and Surveillance webpage.
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  • Simplified Issue Underwriting
    February
    The Society of Actuaries ‘ Committee on Life Insurance Research, the Financial Reporting Section, the Product Development Section, and the Smaller Insurance Company Section release a new report on simplified issue underwriting for life insurance.

2019

2018

  • Modeling and Forecasting Chinese Population Dynamics in a Multi-Population Context 
    December 
    The purpose of this project is to forecast China's population structure in the coming decades by projecting both the mortality and fertility rates of the Chinese population. In particular, we forecast China's future mortality rates in a multiple-population context, by explicitly allowing its systematic mortality patterns to gradually converge to those of a group of more developed countries with higher life expectancy levels and better data quality.
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  • Earnings Emergence Insurance Accounting Under Multiple Financial Reporting
    December
    The Financial Reporting Section, Reinsurance Section and the Committee on Life Insurance Research are pleased to announce the release of a new report examining differences in measurement and presentation under various insurance accounting bases.
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  • Mortality Analysis of 1898-1902 Birth Cohort
    December
    The Reinsurance Section, Product Development Section and Committee on Life Insurance Research announce the release of a new report on the mortality analysis of 1898-1902 birth cohorts.
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  • The Impact of Genetic Testing on Life Insurance Mortality
    October
    The Society of Actuaries (SOA) Reinsurance Section, Product Development Section and the Committee on Life Insurance Research, are pleased to make available new research exploring genetic testing and U.S. life insurance mortality.
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  • Overview of the United States Mortality DataBase
    July
    This report documents progress on a multi-year project initially funded by the United States National Institutes of Health (through grant #R01-AG010245) with additional support from the Research Expanding Boundaries Pool of the Society of Actuaries. The goal of the project is to foster research on geographic variability in survival within the United States by providing access to standardized historical mortality series for the 4 Census Regions, 9 Census Divisions and 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
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  • Survey of Waiver of Premium/Monthly Deduction Rider Assumptions and Experience
    March
    This paper summarizes the results of a survey of waiver of premium/monthly deduction rider assumptions and experience.
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  • Actuarial Review of Insurer Insolvencies, Future Preventions  
    January
    Sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), and Society of Actuaries (SOA), this study looks at causes of insolvency and decisions made by management, regulators, and policyholders over the life cycle of the insolvency. This study is intended to educate insurance professionals on historical insurer impairments and insolvencies and possible future prevention indicators.

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