Category: Mortality

The 2022 Policygenius Life Insurance Trend Report

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.policygenius.com/life-insurance/life-insurance-trend-report-2022/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The marketplace has experienced a surge in insurance companies offering no-medical-exam life insurance — and accelerated underwriting options in particular — that satisfy the growing demand for quick, contactless coverage. 

“We went from having three [AU options] in early 2020 to seven in 2021, with more on the horizon for 2022,” says Eloise Spinello, associate director of account management at Policygenius. “More insurers are adjusting to demand by offering no-med options that account for all health classes as well, rather than reserving these options for only the healthiest applicants.” 

In addition to their convenience, accelerated underwriting policies are frequently one of the most affordable options for shoppers. Policygenius Life Insurance Price Index data from the last year shows that no-medical-exam term insurance policies are competitively priced compared to term policies requiring a full medical exam — and some applicants even paid less for no-medical-exam term coverage. For example, 25-year-old females buying $250,000 in coverage paid 1.6% less in 2021 for a no-medical-exam term policy than they did for a traditional policy. 

Author(s): Nupur Gambhir & Amanda Shih

Publication Date: 2 February 2022

Publication Site: Policygenius

Looking Beyond Sex

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://theactuarymagazine.org/looking-beyond-sex/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

With nonbinary genders recognized on legal documents, customers are beginning to ask for forms and applications to include nonbinary options as well—so they’re not forced into a false selection. Even so, a person still could make an inaccurate selection. A customer falsely selecting a nonbinary gender is slightly less risky for the insurance company than selecting a false binary gender, as nonbinary rates are likely to fall somewhere between male and female to ensure they’re not discriminatory.

In the end, providing false information on an insurance application is fraudulent activity regardless of the question. Many of the states that include nonbinary gender markers on birth certificates and/or driver’s licenses already require the individual to sign an affidavit stating that they are not changing their gender marker for a fraudulent purpose. The benefits of including options for nonbinary customers and the potential for more accurate risk evaluations hopefully will outweigh a possible increase in fraudulent activity.

Author(s): Erin Sheriff

Publication Date: July 2020

Publication Site: The Actuary, SOA

US overdose deaths hit record 107,000 last year, CDC says

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.fox10tv.com/2022/05/11/us-overdose-deaths-hit-record-107000-last-year-cdc-says/

Excerpt:

More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, setting another tragic record in the nation’s escalating overdose epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Wednesday.

The provisional 2021 total translates to roughly one U.S. overdose death every 5 minutes. It marked a 15% increase from the previous record, set the year before. The CDC reviews death certificates and then makes an estimate to account for delayed and incomplete reporting.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the latest numbers “truly staggering.”

The White House issued a statement calling the accelerating pace of overdose deaths “unacceptable” and promoting its recently announced national drug control strategy. It calls for measures like connecting more people to treatment, disrupting drug trafficking and expanding access to the overdose-reversing medication naloxone.

U.S. overdose deaths have risen most years for more than two decades. The increase began in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and — most recently — illicit fentanyl.

Author(s): Mike Stobbe, Associated Press

Publication Date: 11 May 2022

Publication Site: Fox 10 TV

What We’ve Learned — and Failed to Learn — from a Million COVID Deaths

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/now/what-weve-learned-and-failed-to-learn-from-a-million-covid-deaths

Excerpt:

The pandemic is not done. The number of new infections — surely an undercount due to unreported home tests — again tops 75,000 per day. The number of hospitalizations has climbed 20 percent over the past two weeks. The Biden administration has warned there could be 100 million more Americans infected by early next year. Yet Congress seems unwilling to provide more money for basic responses such as tests and vaccines, even as it becomes increasingly clear that even mild cases can lead to dangerous long-term damage.

Yet there are positive developments to consider as well. Vaccinations and certainly boosters are not where they should be, but three out of four Americans have received at least a single dose and two-thirds are fully vaccinated. The Commonwealth Fund has estimated that, absent vaccines, an additional 2.3 million Americans would have died, and 17 million more would have been hospitalized. Public health measures such as masking have largely fallen out of favor, but they helped prevent a death toll that could have been even more terrible.

“A million is way too many people, but as a result of the work that has been done, through public health and vaccination, it’s a number that’s a lot lower than it might have been,” says David Fleming, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Trust for America’s Health. “If we did not do those things, we would not be looking at the 1 million death threshold, we’d be looking at the 3 million death threshold.”

Author(s): Alan Greenblatt

Publication Date: 12 May 2022

Publication Site: Governing

U.S. Mortality Trends Through the Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/us-mortality-trends-through-the-pandemic?s=w

Video:

Graphic:

Excerpt:

I discuss this in the portion of the talk about death rates by age group.

For 2021, the worst relative increase in mortality, compared to 2019, was for ages 30-44.

[I have called it the Millennial Massacre, but it obviously overlaps with Gen X…. and Middle Age Massacre doesn’t exactly work, either. Dang the allure of alliteration].

We will see in a moment that most of that mortality increase didn’t come from COVID.

If you look at overall mortality, obviously total mortality for this age group is much lower than for those much older.

A 5% increase in mortality for those aged 85+ will translate to a much larger number of deaths, but a 50% increase in mortality for those aged 40-44 is extremely worrisome to actuaries and insurers even if the absolute number of deaths is lower in impact. We’re setting reserves and expectations based on certain assumptions, and we’re generally not assuming fluctuations of 50% — that’s just nuts compared to our historical experience…..

…..until now.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 20 May 2022

Publication Site: STUMP on substack

Is Longevity Escape Velocity Science Fiction?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://insights.longevityassistant.com/2022/05/is-longevity-escape-velocity-science.html?m=1

Graphic:

Excerpt:

A new series called “Let’s Talk Longevity” kicked of with a conversation (sort of debate) between Drs. Aubrey De Grey and Charles Brenner, centering around the possibility of achieving “Longevity Escape Velocity” (LEV).

De Grey’s position imagines the possibility (50% chance in next few decades) of a “Methusalarity” a moment in which we begin to reverse some aspects of “aging” , primarily via “damage repair” at such a rate that we are able to repair damage in the body as fast as or faster than that damage is occurring. More concretely defined, it can be thought of as 20-30 years more of expected healthy life at age 60 when anti aging therapies begin.

Author(s): Nate Worrell

Publication Date: May 2022, accessed 20 May 2022

Publication Site: Longevity Assistant

The pandemic’s reported death toll will soon reach 1 million people in the United States.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/how-many-people-died-covid-united-states-1-million-graphic/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The pandemic’s death toll in the United States will surpass 1 million people in the coming days. Conveying the meaning or the magnitude of this number is impossible. But 1 million deaths is the benchmark of an unprecedented American tragedy.

Consider this comparison: The population of D.C. is about 670,000 people. Try to imagine life without every person, in every building, on every street, in the nation’s capital. And then imagine another 330,000 people are gone.

To attempt to put the 1 million deaths in context, we plotted its damage over more than two years and compared the continuing death toll with the tolls from previous catastrophes in our history.

Author(s): Sergio Peçanha and Yan Wu

Publication Date: 12 May 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post

COVID-19 Deaths Cause More Than $700M in Q1 Claims

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/05/09/covid-19-deaths-continue-to-hit-life-insurers-hard/

Excerpt:

Reinsurance Group of America — a Chesterfield, Missouri-based reinsurer — said its U.S. COVID-19 individual life claims fell to $260 million in the latest quarter, from $340 million a year earlier.

“Our U.S. individual mortality results are very consistent with what we are seeing in the general population this quarter,” Jonathan Porter, RGA’s global chief risk officer, said Friday, during a conference call with securities analysts. “We saw a reduction in our claim cost per 10,000 general population deaths as compared to the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2021. This improvement, we believe, is in part due to the lower proportion of deaths in working ages.”

Here’s what happened to U.S. COVID-19 claim statistics at some other life insurers, including some that are known mainly for group life:

MetLife: $230 million in world group life claims this quarter, down from $280 million a year earlier.

Hartford Financial: $96 million before taxes this quarter, down from $185 million a year earlier.

Unum: 1,400 deaths at an average of $55,000, or $77 million, down from 1,725 deaths at an average of $65,000, or $112 million, a year earlier.

Lincoln Financial: $53 million in group life claim claims and $18 million in group disability claims this quarter, down from $83 million in group life claims and $7 million in group disability claims a year earlier.

Voya: $35 million in group life claims this quarter, up from $29 million a year earlier.

Primerica: $16 million in life claims this quarter, down from $21 million a year earlier.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 9 May 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Trends in Life Insurance 2022: How the Industry Has Changed

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/sections/reinsurance/reinsurance-newsletter/2022/april/rsn-2022-04-gambhir/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Growing popularity in no-medical-exam life insurance products has had one expected outcome: More life insurance policies with accelerated underwriting options available in the marketplace. For example, Policygenius offered just three accelerated underwriting options in 2020. In 2021, that number more than doubled to seven, and more options will likely be available in 2022.

Additionally, while such policies had historically only been available to applicants who were young and in good health, the competitive market has prompted more widespread availability. Now, applicants across all health classes can get no-medical-exam policies.

While no-medical-exam policies tend to be about the same cost as fully underwritten policies, applicants tend to favor them even when they are more expensive due to the convenience and expedited turnaround time.

Author(s): Nupur Gambhir

Publication Date: April 2022

Publication Site: Reinsurance News, SOA

All Men Must Die, But They Don’t Have to Die in Office

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/all-men-must-die-but-they-dont-have?s=w

Graphic:

Excerpt:

What’s interesting about the Senate age distribution is that though we have some difference in the lumpiness, when I look at the average age of the senators by party, they’re basically the same: 64 years old (and some change). On the younger end of the Boomers.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 29 April 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Severe hepatitis of ‘unknown origin’ in children being investigated in Canada

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/liver-disease-mystery-1.6431872

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Public health officials say they’re investigating cases of severe liver disease “of unknown origin” among children in Canada as global scientists race to understand a mysterious hepatitis outbreak that has affected nearly 200 youths around the world.

“The Public Health Agency of Canada is aware of reports of severe acute hepatitis of unknown origin in young children in Canada,” the department said in a statement on Tuesday, in response to questions from CBC News.

“These are being investigated further to determine if they are related to cases in the United Kingdom and the United States. As the investigation evolves, we will keep the public updated accordingly.”

The latest available data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows at least 169 cases of acute hepatitis of unknown origin have been reported in close to a dozen countries, with the bulk of the reports — 114 — from the U.K. 

Author(s): Lauren Pelley

Publication Date: 26 April 2022

Publication Site: CBC

1 death, 17 liver transplants in multi-country outbreak of hepatitis in children, WHO says

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/health/multi-country-outbreak-of-hepatitis-in-children/index.html

Excerpt:

At least 169 cases of acute hepatitis in children aged one month to 16 years old have been identified in an outbreak that now involves 11 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

Among the cases of acute hepatitis, at least one child has died and 17 children have required liver transplants, the WHO said in a news release.

“It is not yet clear if there has been an increase in hepatitis cases, or an increase in awareness of hepatitis cases that occur at the expected rate but go undetected,” the WHO said in a statement. “While adenovirus is a possible hypothesis, investigations are ongoing for the causative agent.”

Author(s): John Bonifield, Emma Tucker

Publication Date: 23 April 2022

Publication Site: CNN