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Mortality and pension size

It will surprise nobody reading this blog that richer people tend to live longer.  This applies both between countries (countries with a higher per capita income tend to have higher life expectancies) and also within countries (people of higher socio-economic status tend to live longer than others, even when they all share the same comprehensive healthcare system).

Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: A/E, standard table

Turning the tables

Traditional actuarial mortality analysis was done by expressing a portfolio's mortality experience relative to a reference mortality table (a so-called A/E analysis).  In modern actuarial work the A/E analysis is supplemented (or even replaced) with a multi-factor statistical model; besides age and gender, common risk factors include pension size, geodemographic profile and early-retirement status.
Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: A/E, standard table

Spotting quality issues with limited data

In an earlier posting I showed how to use the Kaplan-Meier function to identify subtle data problems.  However, what can you do when you don't have the detailed information to build a full survival curve?
Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: data validation, survival rates, standard table

Tables turned

Two years ago I asked the question whether we needed standard tables any more.  The question arose because most life offices and even many pension schemes have enough mortality-experience data to create their own portfolio-specific models. 
Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: standard table

Personal standards

Love them or loathe them, actuaries cannot get by without standard tables in some shape or form. Even when performing analysis of your own experience data to avoid basis risk, standard tables are often used as a kind of lingua franca between parties, a convenient way to express approximate results in a way everyone can understand.
Written by: Gavin RitchieTags: technology, standard table

Table talk

When valuing a portfolio, an actuary must often make a decision as to what tables to use for the risk.  The ideal is to use tables which have been created from the portfolio's own experience, preferably using a statistical model to account for the various risk factors. 
Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: standard table

Do we need standard tables any more?

Actuaries are long used to using standard tables. In the UK these are created by the Continuous Mortality Investigation Bureau (CMIB), and the use of certain tables is often prescribed in legislation. As actuaries increasingly move to using statistical models for mortality, it is perhaps natural that they should first consider incorporating standard tables into these models. But are standard tables necessary, or even useful, in such a context?

Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: standard table, GLM, survival models

New SAPS tables

On 31st October 2008 the CMIB published the new SAPS S1 mortality tables based on the mortality of defined-benefit pension schemes. These tables follow the previous release of the '00 Series' mortality tables based on the mortality of life-office pensioners. 
Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: standard table

Degrees of freedom

In an earlier post questioning whether we still need standard tables, we used the AIC to choose between models.
Written by: Stephen RichardsTags: degrees of freedom, AIC, standard table