Category: Insurance

This Feather Could Save Your Life

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a3a9b9a017db2980fad5f01/t/665720beb5a29c6723e58

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Excerpt:

The first thing to understand about bird-on-plane collisions? They’re not the animals’ fault. Swaths of open green space and very few people around make airstrips and their surroundings ideal places for the feathered to, well, flock. As a result, most bird strikes occur during takeoffs and landings. Even off-airport strikes—such as the one involving Sully’s plane—usually happen within five miles of an airport, and at an altitude of 3,000 feet or less.

With 45,000 flights crisscrossing the US every day, odds are good that a handful of airplanes will run into birds. In 1905, Wilbur Wright recorded the first-ever bird strike, over an Ohio cornfield. In 2023, planes hit more than 18,000 birds. The strikes cost the commercial aviation industry roughly $600 million annually in repairs—and if you add in military flights, the total is closer to $650 million.

….

That’s where airports come in. Over the last three decades, the Federal Aviation Administration has recorded every reported midair encounter between bird and plane— roughly 285,000—in the National Wildlife Strike Database. Somewhat amazingly, just 651 bird species have ever been involved. Knowing the specific types of birds that are in their skies helps airports keep them from the flight paths of jumbo jets.

Author(s): Andrew Zaleski

Publication Date: June 2024

Publication Site: Washingtonian

Rampant Fraud in Staged Accidents

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/rampant-fraud-in-staged-accidents/

Excerpt:

Whereas the plot of The Fortune Cookie may sound implausible, the reality is that insurance fraud is rampant. Fake and inflated claims are responsible for over $300 billion in claims leakage annually. Staged accidents are among the most grisly types of insurance fraud. Here, organized criminal rings comprising complicit attorneys, medical providers, and actors fake serious road injuries to extract inflated medical reimbursements and proceeds from insurers in civil litigation. Some such schemes have generated tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.

One recent example is so macabre that it should be made into a movie. Cornelius Garrison was a member of a Louisiana criminal gang actively perpetrating phony injuries in staged accidents. Garrison was a “slammer” in staged automobile “accidents”—a driver who intentionally crashes into other vehicles (preferably 18-wheelers) in order to fraudulently collect insurance settlements. Some have estimated that Garrison participated in close to 100 staged accident scams. But after fellow gang members learned Garrison had turned witness for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), his life was in danger. Co-conspirators offered to pay him to move to the Bahamas to escape retribution; however, Garrison chose to stay home, where he was murdered in a 10-bullet fusillade.

Staged accident fraud is a growing profit center for criminals. In R Street’s 2023 expert witness testimony to Congress on the seamy side of third-party litigation funding, we cited New York’s $31 million staged accident fraud ring, orchestrated by litigation funder Adrian Alexander. The largest scheme known at the time, it ensnared complicit attorneys and corrupt medical providers known as “medical mills,” engaging in artificial medical bill inflation and upcoding (the submission of claims containing codes for expensive medical services never rendered). Since then, another massive staged accident ring twice the size of Alexander’s has come to light: a $60 million racket that allegedly bribed 911 emergency line operators to direct callers to medical providers controlled by Bradley Pierre, the mastermind behind it.

Author(s): Jerry Theodorou

Publication Date: 16 Sept 2025

Publication Site: R Street

U.S. Insurers Report a 1% Increase in Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities Holdings in 2024, Still 2% Below 2022 Peak

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/capital-markets-special-reports-cmbs-ye2024.pdf

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Executive Summary:

  • The U.S. insurance industry’s exposure to agency and private-label commercial mortgage-backed
    securities (CMBS) totaled $287 billion at year-end 2024, a 1% year-over-year (YOY) increase.
  • Property/casualty (P/C) insurance companies were the primary driver of growth, with their agency
    CMBS exposure rising 22% to $36 billion.
  • Agency CMBS accounted for 28% of U.S. insurers’ total CMBS exposure at year-end 2024, reflecting
    a steady increase from 24% at year-end 2022.
  • The credit quality of the CMBS portfolio remained stable overall, with investments carrying an
    NAIC 1 designation or NAIC 2 designation totaling 97.6% of total exposure at year-end 2024.
  • Office property delinquency rates remain elevated at 9.6% as of July 2025, according to S&P Global
    Ratings (S&P Global) data.

Author(s): Michele Wong and Hankook Lee

Publication Date: 16 Oct 2025

Publication Site: NAIC, Capital Markets Special Report

Modeling the Casualty Exposures in Epidemics

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://ar.casact.org/modeling-the-casualty-exposures-in-epidemics/

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Excerpt:

A casualty actuary might be forgiven for thinking that illness and disease are what those “other” actuaries worry about.

Though risk of illness is usually considered the province of the life-health actuary, a session at the 2017 CAS Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, showed how epidemics can affect property-casualty risks. The session also described how to approach modeling those exposures.

….

Milliman actuary Cody Webb, FCAS, began by demonstrating how big the insurance gap is, particularly in developing nations. He explained that the spectrum of losses ranges from minuscule (loss of a single strand of hair) to catastrophic (sudden, instant death) and can affect a single person or every entity in the universe across eons. But the insurable losses share some traits, Webb said, including:

  • a large number of similar exposures.
  • a definite loss, driven by some sort of accident.
  • the ability to create an affordable premium to reimburse after such a loss.
  • the ability to accurately quantify the amount of loss sustained. This is the most important shared trait.

In showing a chart of property-casualty insurance as a percentage of GDP — with the wealthier countries better insured than others — Webb noted that insurance companies need to “quantify and develop products that meet all criteria of insurability.” (See chart below.)

Author(s): James P. Lynch

Publication Date: 16 Jan 2018

Publication Site: Actuarial Review, Casualty Actuarial Society

20 states in search of life insurance

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.dig-in.com/list/20-states-in-search-of-life-insurance?utm_medium=email&utm_source=rasa_io&utm_campaign=newsletter

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Excerpt:

To determine where residents are most concerned about life insurance, Beca Life ranked them by monthly online searches for terms related to the product, based on data from Google Keyword Planner. The total number of monthly average searches in each state was compared against its population, to determine the average monthly searches per 100,000 people. 

The top five states have  an average of 852.84 people per 100,000 seeking life insurance via search engine each month.

Publication Date: 23 Oct 2024

Publication Site: Digital Insurance

Impact of AI on Mortality – Essay Collection

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2024/ai-mortality-essay-collection/

PDF: https://www.soa.org/4a5e85/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2024/impact-ai-mortality/2024-impact-ai-mort-essays.pdf

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Excerpt:

The Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute’s Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committee issued a call for essays to explore the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to mortality and longevity. The objective was to gather a variety of perspectives and experiences on the use of AI in mortality modeling, forecasting and prediction to promote discussion and future research around this topic.


The collection includes six essays that were accepted for publication from all submissions. Two essays were chosen for prizes based on their creativity, originality, and likelihood of further thought on the subject matter.

Author(s): multiple

Publication Date: September 2024

Publication Site: Society of Actuaries, SOA Research Institute

The future of excess mortality after COVID-19

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/health-and-longevity/covid-19-pandemic-synonymous-excess-mortality.html?utm_campaign=CPN-2181_mortality-2024_Group_GLOBAL_2024&utm_medium=Other_Organic&utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_content=Health_N/A_Publication_EN&utm_term=excessmortality

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Excerpt:

Four years on from the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, many countries worldwide still report elevated deaths in their populations. This impact appears generally independent of healthcare systems and population health. This trend is evident even after accounting for shifting population sizes, and the range of reporting mechanisms and death classifications that make inter-country comparisons complex. There is also likely a degree of excess mortality under-reporting.

Quantifying excess mortality has been an acute challenge since 2020 due to the exceptional mortality rates of the pandemic. Excess mortality refers to the number of deaths over and above an assumed “expected” number of deaths. The different methods of estimating expected mortality can generate very different excess mortality rates.

This represents a potential challenge for Life and Health (L&H) insurance, with potentially several years of elevated mortality claims ahead, depending on how general population trends translate into the insured population. Ongoing excess mortality can have implications for L&H insurance claims and reserves. Excess mortality that continues to exceed current expectations may affect the long-term performance of in-force life portfolios as well as the pricing of new life policies.

Author(s): By Daniel Meier, Life & Health R&D Manager, CUO L&H Reinsurance & Prachi Patkee, Life & Health R&D Analyst, CUO L&H Reinsurance & Adam Strange, Life & Health R&D Manager, CUO L&H Reinsurance

Publication Date: 16 Sept 2024

Publication Site: Swiss Re Institute

U.S. Deaths Still 7% Over Pre-COVID Norm in Q2

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/08/12/u-s-deaths-still-7-over-pre-covid-norm-in-q2/

Excerpt:

What You Need to Know

  • General-population mortality trends may differ from trends for people with life insurance and annuities.
  • The total number of first-half deaths was about 110,000 higher than the first six months of 2019.
  • One group would like to see life insurers use voluntary screening tests to learn more about mortality trends.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 12 Aug 2024

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Mortality Stays Slightly Elevated: Globe Life Exec

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/07/30/mortality-stays-slightly-elevated-globe-life-exec/

Excerpt:

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, in early 2020, Globe Life has been one of the life insurers that’s been quickest to give analysts candid assessments of U.S. mortality.

Mortality is much lower than it was when pandemic-related mortality was peaking, and mortality trends are now helping, not, hurting, Globe Life’s earnings, Kalmbach said.

“Mortality has been fairly consistent over the last few quarters, which has been good,” he said.

He sees the mortality rate from accidents and other nonmedical causes improving.

….

“Heart disease and cancer, although improved, are still a little bit higher,” he said. “Another one that remains elevated as a cause of death is neurological disorders, which would be stroke and Alzheimer’s. We’re keeping an eye on that.”

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 30 July 2024

Publication Site: think Advisor

U.S. Insurers’ Bank Loan Exposure Rises at a Decelerated Pace in 2023

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:

https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/capital-markets-special-reports-bank-loans-ye2023_0.pdf

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Executive Summary:

Bank loan investments increased to about $122 billion in book/adjusted carrying value (BACV)
at year-end 2023 from $117 billion at year-end 2022.

Despite the 4.6% growth, bank loansremained at 1.4% of U.S. insurers’ total cash and invested
assets at year-end 2023—the same as year-end 2022.

Approximately 70% of U.S. insurers’ bank loan investments were acquired, and 85% were held
by life companies.

In particular, large life companies, or those with more than $10 billion in assets under
management, accounted for 82% of U.S. insurers’ bank loan exposure, up from nearly 80% in
2022.

The top 25 insurance companies accounted for 75% of U.S. insurers’ total bank loan
investments at year-end 2023; the top 10 accounted for about 60%.

Improvement in credit quality for U.S. insurer-bank loans continued, evidenced by a fourpercentage-point increase in those carrying NAIC 1 and NAIC 2 designations and a
corresponding four-percentage-point decrease in bank loans carrying NAIC 3 and NAIC 4
designations.

Author(s): Jennifer Johnson

Publication Date: 16 July 2024

Publication Site: NAIC Capital Markets Special Report

The Hartford Sees High Mortality for the Next Few Years

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/04/26/hartford-sees-high-mortality-for-next-few-years/

Excerpt:

Chris Swift, the chief executive officer of Hartford Financial, on Friday confirmed what government statistics seem to be showing: The U.S. death rate continues to be noticeably higher than it was before early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic came to light.

Swift talked about the effects of the higher U.S. mortality rate on the company’s group life insurance business Friday during a conference call with securities analysts.

He noted that mortality was much lower in the first quarter than in the first quarter of 2023, but that it was still somewhat higher than the pre-pandemic average.

“The trends are downward,” Swift said. “But we believe that we’re still operating in an endemic state of mortality, which means it’s going to be higher than normal, and we think that will continue for at least the next the next couple of years. We’ve been pricing our product with that view.”

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 26 April 2024

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Collision Course

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/staged-car-crashes-insurance-fraud.html

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Excerpt:

There’s a narrow path to such ostentation for the non-famous and non-college-interested who mock the idea of an actual job. Mize found his muse in the con and his ability to rope others into it. Here’s how they say it happened: He struck when you wanted cash. When totems of the middle class were slipping from reach. When you needed a down payment. To pay off credit cards. To start a business. When asking your parents for money made you feel like a failure. When you were suffocated by medical bills, neither earning enough to pay nor poor enough for government help.

Yet money alone doesn’t completely explain why the people closest to Mize entered the ring. Mize had a way of making himself your center of gravity, the one from whom you wanted approval, mentorship, love. Mize could be fun, even thrilling. But getting all that meant pleasing him. And pleasing him meant fraud.

Author(s): Lauren Smiley

Publication Date: 3 Oct 2022

Publication Site: NY Mag