Pricing implications of trends in population mortality and underwriting effectiveness

Pricing actuaries try to anticipate insured lives mortality rates for decades into the future by considering historic relationships between population and insured lives mortality and trends in population mortality. The degree to which underwriting might decrease insured lives mortality relative to population mortality is of particular importance. A comparison of trends in population and insured mortality is presented to illustrate historic relationships. Two theories for future life expectancy trends are: 1) no foreseeable limit to life expectancy, and 2) life expectancy limited by biological forces. Factors that may increase or decrease the future effectiveness of underwriting are reviewed.