Stephen Richards

When fitting mortality models, the foundation of modern statistical inference is the log-likelihood function. The point at which the log-likelihood has its maximum value gives you the maximum-likelihood estimates of your parameters, while the curvature of the log-likelihood tells you about the standard errors of those parameter estimates.

The current issue of The Actuary magazine carries an article on the selection of model points. Model points were widely used by actuaries in the 1980s and 1990s, when computing power was insufficient to perform complex policy calculations on every policy in a reasonable time-frame.

A forward contract is an agreement between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a specified price at a date in the future. It is typically a private arrangement used by one or both parties to manage their risk, or where one party wishes to speculate.

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. 

How important are the labels we give to things? In a seminal paper Richard Willets brought a particular mortality phenomenon to the attention of the UK actuarial profession

The Advocate General of the European Court has recently opined that "the use of actuarial factors based on sex is incompatible with the principle of equal treatment for men and women".

In the UK the Board for Actuarial Standards (BAS) has published a series of Technical Actuarial Standards (TAS).  At the time of writing there are three standards which are either in force or shortly will be: one for data (TAS-D), one for reports (TAS-R) and one for actuarial models (TAS-M).

Earlier I described a problem in mathematical computing for mortality modelling.  This was where an intermediate step resulted in a number too big for the computer to handle, causing the entire calculation to overflow and fail. 

At it's core, the study of mortality is based on a simple ratio — the number of deaths, D, divided by the population exposed to the risk of death, E

In the debate about how fast mortality will improve in the future, sometimes it is useful to remind ourselves how far we have come.