Causes of Death: Patterns in the Insured Population, the Opioid Crisis and Deaths of Despair

Only available as part of a package

The presenters will share information about: 

  • Insights into causes of death through the use of predictive models, based on a reinsured US life portfolio, using logistic regression models to understand three main causes of death: cancer, heart and external causes; 
  • Opioid abuse is a widespread phenomenon with drug-related mortality rates rising steeply in the U.S. over the past two decades. But what does the most recent data tell U.S. about the outlook for Opioid-related mortality?; 
  • 'Deaths of despair' have been publicized as a cause for the poor performance of U.S. mortality in recent years. The presenters will discuss the different causes under this label, their evolution and explore the drivers behind them.

At the conclusion of the session, attendees will:

  • Have insights on cause of death observations in the individual life insurance population and use case of predictive modeling for cause of death analysis
  • Understand opioid epidemic impact on mortality of different segments 
  • Have an accurate understanding of the magnitude and drivers of the 'Deaths of despair' issue"

Nicholas Anthony Kocisak (Moderator)

Nicholas Kocisak is an Actuarial Assistant on the New Data Initiatives Team within RGA’s Global Research and Data Analytics department. His role is to analyze new sources of data and assess their potential uses, as well as create internal tools that assist in achieving business goals. He joined the company in 2017. Nicholas received a Bachelor of Science in business administration with a major in actuarial science from Drake University.

Jean-Marc Fix, FSA, MAAA

Jean-Marc is Vice President, Actuarial Research & Development for Gen Re in Stamford, Ct. Jean-Marc has over 25 years of experience in the life insurance industry and is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries as well as a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Jean-Marc has extensive experience in all actuarial as well as many of the non-actuarial aspects of life insurance and Critical Illness product development. He has spoken on a variety of underwriting, product design, claims and reinsurance topics as they relate to actuaries, underwriters and medical directors. He has written articles for On the Risk as well as various actuarial publications. He is currently active in a number of SOA committees and Project Oversight Groups centering on mortality and underwriting as well as being a member of the Reinsurance Section Council. He is the chair of the Living to 100 Symposium. He also is the chair of the Mortality and Longevity Strategic program Committee.  He is  a member of ACLI’s Big Data Task Force. Jean-Marc graduated Summa cum Laude from Whittier College with a BA in Mathematics.

Anji Ines Li Zhao, FSA, CERA, MAAA

Anji Li is an Assistant Actuary at Munich Re based in New York City. In her current Biometric Research role, Anji leads accelerated underwriting studies and client mortality benchmarking, and assists with research and pricing support. Within Munich Re, Anji also supported the In-force Management team, where her research and analysis helped develop thought leadership on maturity extension riders. Prior to Munich Re, Anji began her career in Ernst & Young after graduating from Purdue University with a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science and Applied Statistics. She is an Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Donald Sampson

A latecomer to the actuarial profession, Dr. Sampson first trained as a mathematician, earning a doctorate degree at Georgia Tech in 2017. He began actuarial work starting in 2016 and has worked at Munich Re US Life full time since 2017. He recently joined the Biometrics (R&D) department where he works as an actuarial associate.

Key:

Complete
Failed
Available
Locked