Report on the Survey of Older Age Mortality and Other Assumptions

Mortality at older ages has been an increasingly important issue for new products and profitability of current products. The Product Development Section Council of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) engaged RGA to undertake a research project into the mortality and other actuarial assumptions for products sold at older ages.

The project included coverage of the following topics:

• Product designs and sales trends by age 
• Underwriting requirements at older ages 
• Mortality assumptions at older ages including selection factors, mortality level, preferred discounts and mortality improvement 
• Lapse assumptions 
• Comparisons between fully underwritten life insurance and long-term care insurance