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Ruark Consulting Releases Annuity Industry Mortality Studies
[August 08, 2018]

Ruark Consulting Releases Annuity Industry Mortality Studies


Ruark Consulting, LLC has released the results of its 2018 studies of variable annuity (VA) and fixed indexed annuity (FIA) industry mortality. Highlights include:

  • Aggregate variable annuity mortality has declined 3% since 2015, attributable to a combination of underlying mortality improvement and changes in business mix.
  • Mortality results vary by product features, contract size, and tax status. Most notably, contracts with living benefit features exhibit much lower mortality than those without.
  • Ruark's proprietary annuity mortality table provides a much better fit to VA and FIA experience than even recent standard industry annuity tables.

The studies are based on experience from twenty-seven companies from 2008 through 2017, and over $1 trillion of current account values.

"We have 60% more data than our last studies, allowing for high credibility even when splitting results by multipe factors of influence," said Timothy Paris, Ruark's CEO. "Moreover, we now have a lot more experience after the end of the surrender charge and bonus periods, commonly 7-10 years. As a result, these studies provide new and important insights into long-term annuity mortality, which should help issuing companies to refine their product designs, pricing, and risk management for these widely-used retirement savings and income products, particularly with pending changes to regulatory requirements."



Detailed study results, including company-level analytics and customized behavioral assumption models calibrated to the study data, are available for purchase by participating companies.

Ruark Consulting, LLC (www.ruark.co), based in Simsbury, CT, is an actuarial consulting firm which aims to be the platform and industry benchmark for principles-based insurance data analytics and risk management. Ruark's consultants are frequent speakers at industry events on the topics of longevity, policyholder behavior, product guarantees, and reinsurance. Their work and commentary have appeared in numerous industry publications. Ruark enjoys an ongoing collaboration with the Goldenson Center for Actuarial Research at the University of Connecticut.



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