COVID-19’s Impact on Mortality in the United States

By Dave Dillon, Mervyn Kopinsky and Patrick Nolan

Small Talk, September 2021

Just as the U.S. is dealing with a new surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations and death, the pandemic’s impact on the nation’s mortality rate is generating heightened interest. Two new reports issued from the Society of Actuaries provide important insights.

The Group Life COVID-19 Mortality Survey and the U.S. Individual Life COVID-19 Mortality Experience Study offer an early analysis of the significant toll COVID has had. Taken together, along with the more than three dozen Covid-related research reports produced by the Society of Actuaries, they offer a wealth of material about the consequences of the pandemic.

Group Term Life Mortality Survey

The survey provides a high-level view of mortality results during the COVID-19 pandemic through March 2021, as compared to prior period baseline mortality results. As an update to a report released in December 2020, it encompassed more than 1.8 million claims and $83 billion in earned premium from 20 of the top U.S. group term life insurers.

• From an incurred mortality viewpoint, all 12 months from April 2020 through March 2021 showed excess mortality versus baseline expectations. April, November, December, and January each had very high incurred mortality spikes of 26 percent or more.
• In the 12-month period of April 2020 through March 2021, estimated reported claim incidence rates were up 17.3 percent on a seasonally-adjusted basis, compared to 2017–2019 reported claims for the same 12 months.
• In that same period, estimated incurred incidence rates were 19.6 percent higher than baseline on a seasonally-adjusted basis. (The incurred incidence rates in February and March 2021 are based on incomplete data and are subject to change.)
• Approximately 13 percent of all reported claims with death dates in April 2020 through March 2021 were determined to have a cause of death of COVID-19.

The survey's authors noted that as of the writing of their report, complications from COVID-19 have killed over 620,000 people in the United States alone, and over 4.0 million worldwide.

Individual Life Mortality Experience Study

The report contains the results of an excess mortality analysis for the first three quarters of 2020. A collaboration among the Society of Actuaries, LIMRA, Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), the reinsurance software provider TAI, key findings include the following regarding calendar year 2020:

• The number of claims spiked significantly in the second quarter as compared to prior trends, following an increased level of claims in the first quarter. During the third quarter there was a continued level of higher claims, but not to the same extent as during the second quarter.
• Ages below 45 tended to experience the steepest mortality increases during the third quarter.
• During the first and second quarters, high face amount policies fared no better than low face amount policies. By the third quarter the policies with face amounts above $500,000 showed lower mortality ratios than policies with face amounts below it.

The study’s authors found that during the third quarter of 2020, attained ages below 45 tended to experience the steepest mortality increases. They also noted, “While we expected to see a noticeable spike in claims in the New York and New Jersey region in the second quarter of 2020, it was somewhat surprising to see results in that region essentially return to normal by August.” In Region 4 (the Southeast) and Region 6 (Texas and surrounding states), there continued to be a much stronger impact of COVID-19 throughout the third quarter than for the other eight regions in the country.

The analyses in the report are based on data submissions from 31 individual life insurance companies with reported data as of December 2020 or later. Deaths occurring after Sept. 30, 2020, were omitted to minimize distortions due to reporting lags.

Other Sources of COVID Insights

Earlier this year, a report from the U.S. Census said COVID-19 pandemic has caused a devastating loss of life and devastated the nation's economy.

During April 2020, the first full month of the pandemic, the United States experienced an additional 2.4 deaths per 10,000 individuals beyond predictions based on historical mortality trends. This was a 33 percent increase in all-cause national mortality—deaths caused directly or indirectly by the coronavirus. Beyond the virus itself, economic decline caused by the pandemic may have had an indirect impact on the U.S. death count, the report said.

More recently, on July 21 the Washington Post reported provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a part of the CDC, shows life expectancy at birth for the total population dropped from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020. Almost three-fourths of that decline is attributed to deaths from COVID-19.

The NCHS noted the drop in life expectancy also reflects the pandemic’s broader impacts on health, including a record-high number of deaths from drug overdoses.

* An incurred death is one that occurred during the period of exposure being analyzed, whether reported during that period or not.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Dave Dillon, FSA, MAAA, is a senior vice president & principal with Lewis & Ellis, Inc. He can be reached at ddillon@lewisellis.com.

Mervyn Kopinsky, FSA, EA, MAAA, is an experience studies actuary at the Society of Actuaries. He can be reached at mkopinsky@soa.org.

Patrick Nolan, FSA, MAAA, is an experience studies actuary at the Society of Actuaries. He can be reached at pnolan@soa.org.