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Back in the days before personal computers, actuaries relied solely on published tables for their calculations. These were not just the mortality tables, but monetary functions of these tables known as commutation factors. My old student tables from 1980 list commutation and other factors at discount rates of 4%, 6% and 8% (the latter rate seems almost comically high by current standards).
Priority clearance
We previously discussed the clearance of senescent cells as a plausible treatment for multiple diseases of aging. The theory goes that senescent cells drive systemic inflammation, and that this inflammation underlies aging pathology.
How much data do you need?
There are two common scenarios when an actuary has to come up with a mortality basis for pensioners or annuitants.
Of mice and (space)men
It may seem obvious, but when encountering longevity research, it bears repeating: human biology is not mouse biology. For this reason, one of my resolutions for 2017 was to minimise blogs centered around rodents.
Twin peaks
If you are over forty, the title of this blog will call to mind an iconic, sometimes disturbing, television series of the same name from 1990. If you clicked on the link expecting murder, surreal horror and an undercurrent of sleaze, however, then this posting is as far away from all that as you are ever likely to get.
Fifty years of mortality improvements
In an earlier post we looked at the development of the distribution of age at death over time. We saw how the peak adult age at death had continuously moved towards an ever-higher age.
Universal prescription
In April 2017 the UK Government unveiled its Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS), the first binding legislation ensuring government investment in cycling and walking provision in England. CWIS commits 1.2 billion GBP of spending by 2020/2021, coming from central and local government as well as from local enterprise partnerships.
Frailty models
A population consists of individuals, each with their own genetics, lifestyle, and yes, their very own force of mortality. National mortality data, such as held by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), are observed only at the population level and the variation in the force of mortality across individuals of the same age is forever hidden. The purpose of this blog is to show how we can attempt to model this hidden heterogeneity.
Changing patterns of mortality
In an earlier post we introduced the idea of the so-called curve of deaths, which is simply the distribution of age at death. This is intimately bound up with survival models and the idea of future lifetime as a random variable.
On the (funding) level
When I read Allan Martin's earlier blog on how pension-scheme reserves routinely fail to include expenses, I was so surprised I had to ask him if it was really true. As a former life-insurance actuary, any reserve which didn't include an allowance for expenses simply wasn't a complete assessment of the liability in my view.