New paper on mortality differentials amongst pensioners in Germany

Longevitas Ltd has published a new paper on the mortality differentials observed amongst pensions in payment: "Creating portfolio-specific mortality tables: a case study" by Richards, Kaufhold and Rosenbusch.  The results were presented to a seminar hosted by the European Academy of Actuaries in Vienna in June 2013.  Drawing on the experience of quarter of a million pension records in Germany, the authors found the following eight statistically significant risk factors:

• Age
• Gender
• Pension size
• Retirement status: ill-health or normal age retirement
• Employer sector
• Region
• Time trend
• Scheme-specific effects

The results were highly significant financially, with a difference of over 30% in reserve between the longest- and shortest-lived group.  The results echo a similar study carried out on UK annuitants a decade previously.