Category: Mortality

2021 Milliman Variable Annuity Mortality Study

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/2021-Milliman-Variable-Annuity-Mortality-Study

Excerpt:

Milliman Variable Annuity Mortality Study shows mortality increases of 11% as a result of COVID-19 pandemic

Life insurers and annuity writers are now beginning to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lines of business, as mortality data for the year 2020 is reported and analyzed. While the pandemic has affected different carriers in different ways, future mortality rates are a key assumption for annuity writers.

With Milliman’s acquisition of Ruark Consulting in December 2021, the industry’s leading variable annuity mortality study has been rebranded as the Milliman Variable Annuity Mortality Study. The study is based on data from 2008 through 2020, totaling $674 billion in account value as of the end of the study period, with over 1 million deaths across 19 companies.

Author(s): Timothy Paris

Publication Date: 14 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Milliman

Accelerated Death Benefit Rider Financing Approaches

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/sections/product-dev/product-dev-newsletter/2022/june/pm-2022-06-scholz-eaton/

Excerpt:

Living benefit riders to life insurance policies (also known as ‘combo’ or ‘hybrid’ policies) have become a core component of life insurance sales strategy. LIMRA reported that in 2020 “Combination products represented 24 percent of life insurance sales based on total premium.”[1] Concurrently, the long-term care insurance (LTCI) industry reached an inflection point when more LTCI (and chronic illness) benefits were sold through hybrid products than from standalone LTCI coverage.

On the spectrum of life and LTCI hybrid policies, the richest of these provide coverage of LTCI first through accelerating the policy’s death benefit, and then by providing extended LTCI benefits for many more years. There are a handful of individual and worksite insurers who sell these rich hybrid policies. On the other end of this spectrum are acceleration-only riders to life insurance policies. These riders provide policyholders the opportunity to receive a portion of the policy’s death benefit in advance, under certain conditions. Some of these riders do not cover qualified LTCI, but instead cover ‘chronic illness,’ which has a similar benefit trigger but is not formally LTCI.

This article outlines industry practice and consideration for pricing these acceleration-only policies. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Model Regulation #620 addresses accelerated death benefit riders to life insurance policies.[2] Model Regulation #620 outlines three financing methods for accelerated death benefit riders which we describe in this article. The Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission (the IIPRC, or the “Compact”) adopted standards for some of these riders in the Additional Standards for Accelerated Death Benefits (IIPRC-L-08-LB-I-AD-3).[3] For companies filing chronic illness, critical illness, and terminal illness products in the Compact, these standards define—among other items—the form and actuarial submission requirements and benefit design options for accelerated death benefit riders. If a company is filing an acceleration rider for a qualified LTCI benefit, that product would be subject to the IIPRC individual LTC insurance standards.

Author(s): Stephanie Scholz and Robert Eaton

Publication Date: June 2022

Publication Site: Product Matters!, SOA

Teslas running Autopilot involved in 273 crashes reported since last year

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/15/tesla-autopilot-crashes/

Excerpt:

Tesla vehicles running its Autopilot software have been involved in 273 reported crashes over roughly the past year, according to regulators, far more than previously known and providing concrete evidence regarding the real-world performance of its futuristic features.

The numbers, which were published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the first time Wednesday, show that Tesla vehicles made up nearly 70 percent of the 392 crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems reported since last July, and a majority of the fatalities and serious injuries — some of which date back further than a year. Eight of the Tesla crashes took place before June 2021, according to data released by NHTSA on Wednesday morning.

Previously, NHTSA said it had probed 42 crashes potentially involving driver assistance, 35 of which included Tesla vehicles, in a more limited data set that stretched back to 2016.

Of the six fatalities listed in the data set published Wednesday, five were tied to Tesla vehicles — including a July 2021 crash involving a pedestrian in Flushing, Queens, and a fatal crash in March in Castro Valley, Calif. Some dated as far back as 2019.

Author(s): Faiz Siddiqui, Rachel Lerman and Jeremy B. Merrill

Publication Date: 15 Jun 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post

Was ‘The Staircase’ murder really about life insurance?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.policygenius.com/life-insurance/news/staircase-michael-peterson/

Excerpt:

It’s been 21 years since novelist Michael Peterson was on trial for the murder of his wife, Kathleen, but the case is still capturing the public’s attention—most recently in an HBO Max series, “The Staircase.”

….

The case also involved the potential for a large life insurance payout. Kathleen had a $1.4 million life insurance policy, which was due to be paid to Michael in the event of her death. Prosecutors said Peterson was hoping to use the payout to address his debt [1] , including $143,000 in credit card debt.

…..

Peterson signed away any claim to the life insurance proceeds during the trial. However, because of the slayer rule, Peterson wouldn’t have been able to collect any money. Under the slayer rule, anyone suspected of murder or plotting a murder is prevented from benefiting from the dead person’s life insurance policy. Instead, Kathleen’s biological daughter, Caitlin Atwater, and her daughter’s father, Fred Atwater, received the money. [2]

In the scope of insurance fraud, life insurance murders aren’t a huge occurrence but they do happen, says Matthew J. Smith, executive director of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. For instance, in 2017, Joaquin Shadow Rams Sr., was convicted of killing his 15-month-old son for insurance money. Rams had taken out a $500,000 life insurance policy on the boy soon after he was born, which Smith says, should have been a red flag. 

Author(s): Lisa Rabasca Roepe

Publication Date: accessed 18 June 2022

Publication Site: Policygenius

A Filmmaker Imagines a Japan Where the Elderly Volunteer to Die

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/world/asia/japan-plan75-hayakawa-chie.html?smid=url-share

Excerpt:

The premise for Chie Hayakawa’s film, “Plan 75,” is shocking: a government push to euthanize the elderly. In a rapidly aging society, some also wonder: Is the movie prescient?

TOKYO — The Japanese film director Chie Hayakawa was germinating the idea for a screenplay when she decided to test out her premise on elderly friends of her mother and other acquaintances. Her question: If the government sponsored a euthanasia program for people 75 and over, would you consent to it?

….

Close to one-third of the country’s population is 65 or older, and Japan has more centenarians per capita than any other nation. One out of five people over 65 in Japan live alone, and the country has the highest proportion of people suffering from dementia. With a rapidly declining population, the government faces potential pension shortfalls and questions about how the nation will care for its longest-living citizens.

….

Aging politicians dominate government, and the Japanese media emphasizes rosy stories about happily aging fashion gurus or retail accommodations for older customers. But for Ms. Hayakawa, it was not a stretch to imagine a world in which the oldest citizens would be cast aside in a bureaucratic process — a strain of thought she said could already be found in Japan.

Euthanasia is illegal in the country, but it occasionally arises in grisly criminal contexts. In 2016, a man killed 19 people in their sleep at a center for people with disabilities outside Tokyo, claiming that such people should be euthanized because they “have extreme difficulty living at home or being active in society.”

Author(s): Motoko Rich

Publication Date: 17 June 2022

Publication Site: NYT

Newly Released Estimates Show Traffic Fatalities Reached a 16-Year High in 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/early-estimate-2021-traffic-fatalities

Report link: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813298

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its early estimate of traffic fatalities for 2021. NHTSA projects that an estimated 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year, a 10.5% increase from the 38,824 fatalities in 2020. The projection is the highest number of fatalities since 2005 and the largest annual percentage increase in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System’s history. Behind each of these numbers is a life tragically lost, and a family left behind. 

“We face a crisis on America’s roadways that we must address together,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “With our National Roadway Safety Strategy and the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we are taking critical steps to help reverse this devastating trend and save lives on our roadways.” 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law places a strong emphasis on improving safety and includes the new Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which opened its first round of applications just this week. The program, the first of its kind, invests up to $6 billion over five years to fund local efforts to reduce roadway crashes and fatalities. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law now being implemented also advances Complete Streets policies and standards; requires updates to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which defines speeds, lane markings, traffic lights and more on most roads in the country; and sharply increases funding for the Highway Safety Improvement Program, which helps states adopt data-driven approaches to making roads safer. 

Publication Date: 17 May 2022

Publication Site: NHTSA

Childhood Mortality Trends, 1999-2021 (provisional), Ages 1-17

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/childhood-mortality-trends-1999-2021

Graphic:

Excerpt:

There was the good news from before the pandemic: the accidental death rate had come way, way down. That was mostly due to improved traffic safety. (Not reduced drug ODs, alas)

In the pandemic, both increased motor vehicle deaths and drug overdoses has pushed up the accidental death rate for teens to increase to levels seen a decade ago.

But there was a bad pre-pandemic trend: suicide rates had increased from 2007 to 2018 — increasing a total of 120% over that period. That was hideous.

It seemed to have reversed in 2019, and come down during the pandemic. The suicide trends in the pandemic really made no sense to anybody, but perhaps the increased drug ODs were actually suicides.

Homicides didn’t have a steady trend before the pandemic, but has definitely had a bad trend during the pandemic. Homicide death rates for teens increased over 50% from 2019 to 2021.

One observation: suicide and homicide death rates used to be about the same for teens in the early 2000s, and then with the bad suicide trend, suicide ranked higher. Even with the increase in homicide rates, suicide still ranks higher.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 15 June 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Recent Trends in Heat-Related Mortality in the United States: An Update through 2018

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wcas/13/1/wcas-d-20-0083.1.xml

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-20-0083.1

Graphic:

Abstract:

Much research has shown a general decrease in the negative health response to extreme heat events in recent decades. With a society that is growing older, and a climate that is warming, whether this trend can continue is an open question. Using eight additional years of mortality data, we extend our previous research to explore trends in heat-related mortality across the United States. For the period 1975–2018, we examined the mortality associated with extreme-heat-event days across the 107 largest metropolitan areas. Mortality response was assessed over a cumulative 10-day lag period following events that were defined using thresholds of the excess heat factor, using a distributed-lag nonlinear model. We analyzed total mortality and subsets of age and sex. Our results show that in the past decade there is heterogeneity in the trends of heat-related human mortality. The decrease in heat vulnerability continues among those 65 and older across most of the country, which may be associated with improved messaging and increased awareness. These decreases are offset in many locations by an increase in mortality among men 45–64 (+1.3 deaths per year), particularly across parts of the southern and southwestern United States. As heat-warning messaging broadly identifies the elderly as the most vulnerable group, the results here suggest that differences in risk perception may play a role. Further, an increase in the number of heat events over the past decade across the United States may have contributed to the end of a decades-long downward trend in the estimated number of heat-related fatalities.

Author(s): Scott C. Sheridan1, P. Grady Dixon2, Adam J. Kalkstein3, and Michael J. Allen4

Publication Date: Published-online: 14 Dec 2020

Print Publication: 01 Jan 2021

Publication Site: Weather, Climate, and Society

Murder-Suicides By Pilots Are Vexing Airlines As Deaths Mount

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/murder-suicides-by-pilots-are-vexing-airlines-as-deaths-mount-3074762

Graphic:

Excerpt:

For decades, commercial airline travel has gotten progressively safer. But one cause of deaths has stubbornly persisted: pilots who intentionally crash in murder-suicides.


Preliminary evidence suggests the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. jet in March may be the latest such tragedy, a person familiar with the investigation said. If confirmed, that would make it the fourth since 2013, bringing deaths in those crashes to 554.

So as aircraft become more reliable and pilots grow less susceptible to errors, fatalities caused by murder-suicides are becoming an increasingly large share of the total. While intentional acts traditionally aren’t included in air-crash statistics, they would be the second-largest category of deaths worldwide if they were, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. By comparison, 1,745 people died as a result of pilot error, mechanical failures or other causes on Western-built jets from 2012 through 2021.

Author(s): Alan Levin, Bloomberg

Publication Date: 17 June 2022

Publication Site: NDTV

The Mortality Improvement Model, MIM-2021-v2

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2021/mortality-improvement-model/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Different mortality projection methodologies are utilized by actuaries across applications and practice areas. As a result, the SOA’s Longevity Advisory Group (“Advisory Group”) developed a single framework to serve as a consistent base for practitioners in projecting mortality improvement.  The Mortality Improvement Model, MIM-2021-v2, Tools and User Guides, compose the consistent approach and are defined below.

  1. A report describing MIM-2021-v2 which summarizes the evolution of MIM-2021-v2; provides an overview of MIM-2021-v2; presents considerations for applying mortality assumptions in the model; and outlines issues the Advisory Group is currently considering for future model enhancements.
  2. A status report of the items listed in Section V of Developing a Consistent Framework for Mortality Improvement. This report advises practitioners about subsequent research and analysis conducted by the Advisory Group regarding these items.
  3. An Excel-based tool, MIM-2021-v2 Application Tool, and user guide, MIM-2021-v2 Application Tool User Guide, for practitioners to construct sets of mortality improvement rates under this framework for specific applications.
  4. An Excel-based tool, MIM-2021-v2 Data Analysis Tool, and user guide, MIM-2021-v2 Data Analysis Tool User Guide, for practitioners to analyze the historical data sets included in the MIM-2021-v2 Application Tool.

The Longevity Advisory Group is planning to update the framework annually as new data and enhancements become available. MIM-2021-v2 is the first revision since the initial release in April 2021.  This version uses the same underpinning as the initial MIM-2021 release but has been refreshed to include another year of historical U.S. population mortality data as well as more user flexibility and functionality to replicate RPEC’s MP-2021 and O2-2021 scales.  

Author(s): Longevity Advisory Group

Publication Date: June 2022, most recent update

Publication Site: Society of Actuaries

The Myth of the Disease-Ridden Red States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://brownstone.org/articles/the-myth-of-the-disease-ridden-red-states/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Another way of looking at this is to look at the Year over Year change of rates within each group. As you can see from the chart below, the percentage change remains pretty consistent among each individual grouping, with 2020 seeing the largest change rate, and 2021 seeing a small but significant change rate from 2020 (meaning overall mortality was still quite elevated relative to 2019).

In summary, when we take a historical view and higher level view while maintaining these same groupings, these stark differences in Covid-19 mortality rates do not seem to translate into overall morality rates. Why?

At the risk of this analysis turning into another pile-on pointing out the New York Time’s errors, I’d like to offer a more benign explanation. It’s one that has plagued journalists and reports throughout the pandemic. Why is it that everything is framed in Red and Blue? One simple reason: the availability of the data. Leonhardt is using data that is easily accessible and is already formatted for easy analysis.

This is what is called an availability bias. It’s essentially creating a hypothesis or completing a study based on a specific set of data, purely for no other reason than that the data is there. Just because the data is available does not mean it’s the best data to use to try to answer a question.

Author(s): Josh Stevenson

Publication Date: 3 June 2022

Publication Site: Brownstone Institute

A Widening Gap in Life Expectancy Makes Raising Social Security’s Retirement Age a Particularly Bad Deal for Low-Wage Earners

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://sections.soa.org/publication/?m=58953&i=668685&view=articleBrowser&article_id=3731911&ver=html5

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Many recent studies find the life expectancy gap is growing. By how much depends on how and when it’s measured. In 2014, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated that a 65-yearold man in the upper quintile (fifth) of life earnings could be expected to live more than three years longer than a similar man in the lowest quintile. By 2039, the difference would double to six years.

In a 2015 report, the National Academy of Sciences compared the 1930 and 1960 birth cohorts and found that life expectancy for the bottom quintile of men at age 50 decreased slightly to 26.1 years over the 30-year period. Meanwhile, life expectancy rose for men age 50 in higher-income quintiles. As shown in Figure 1, the life expectancy gap between the bottom (quintile 1) and top fifth of the income distribution widened from 5.1 to 12.7 years. In 2016, a Brookings study found, for men born in 1940, those in the lowest income decile at age 50 could expect to live to be about 76 years old compared with 88 years for the highest income decile. Another research team, led by Raj Chetty, found that disparity in longevity continued to increase over 2001–2014; the average gap between the bottom and top 1 percent was 14.6 years for men and 10.1 years for women.

Author(s): Karl Polzer

Publication Date: August 2020

Publication Site: In the Public Interest, SOA