Description: Human longevity is one of the great success stories of the past century, and there is growing consensus that there are further gains to come. What will these future gains look like, where will they come from and how likely are they to happen. Furthermore, how do we as actuaries deal with the uncertainty when trying to predict future long-term mortality improvements more than 20 years into the future. This is one of the most important assumptions on the balance sheet that insurers and reinsurers make, so it is important to have a strong perspective on it. Our presentation will give attendees a view into some of the core components of how to assess long-term mortality improvements by looking at the cyclical nature across different countries of life expectancy. It will also deep dive into the different drivers of life expectancy over the past cycle driven largely by improved diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cessation of smoking, which ended in about 2010. It will then discuss how population mortality improvement has slowed and plateaued in many major countries.