LIMRA panel explores forces reshaping mortality models post-COVID

When insurance executives gather for a panel on “Navigating Mortality Risk: Strategic Intelligence for Business Impact” at the LIMRA Annual Conference, they will look beyond actuarial charts to explore the new forces reshaping how the industry understands mortality and the related business challenges.

“It’s actually some recent research and trends on factors that impact mortality,” said Karen Terry, corporate vice president of Insurance Research at LIMRA, in a conversation previewing the event. “Things like mental health issues, the new GLP-1 drugs and their impact on obesity, and climate change and climate risk — how that impacts mortality in terms of increased natural disasters and disease.”

The insurance industry has always relied on sophisticated models to project mortality. But events of the last decade, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, have scrambled expectations. Mortality spiked during the pandemic and, as Terry noted, has not fully returned to pre-COVID norms.

'Old models don’t work as well as they used to'

“When there’s a major shift like that, your old models don’t work as well as they used to,” she said. “You have to adapt them. Even outside of insurance, if you look at weather predictions and the impact climate change is having, it’s clear that the data going into models just doesn’t look the same anymore.”

For insurers, that uncertainty has direct consequences for pricing, reserves, reinsurance demand, and ultimately profitability.

Terry will moderate the panel on the event’s third working day. She will be joined by Sara Goldberg, vice president and actuary at the Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), and Julianne Callaway, vice president, and senior actuary of Strategic Research at RGA.

The discussion is especially timely because it focuses on factors not traditionally tied to mortality analysis. Substance use, mental illness, climate change, and obesity treatments are all changing the assumptions insurers have long relied on.

“Substance use, of course, has a clear tie to mortality,” Terry said. “But then there’s also mental illness, which has been a big issue in our country recently. It often has what they call a comorbidity, so it tends to be related to other health factors. That, again, impacts health and potentially lifespan as well.”

Pharmaceutical innovation alters the picture

Pharmaceutical innovation is also altering the picture. Rapid adoption of GLP-1 drugs, first for diabetes and now widely prescribed for weight loss, could have profound effects on obesity rates and related health outcomes. How quickly those benefits appear and whether they last will matter for insurers managing long-term mortality risk.

Climate is no longer just an underwriting factor for property insurers. Hurricanes, wildfires, and the health effects of smoke, heat, and displacement make mortality implications unavoidable. Terry recalled her experience after Hurricane Katrina, when insurers had to rethink sales projections in affected areas.

“The more natural disasters you have, the more chance you have for storms, fires, and health impacts,” she said. “There’s an increase potentially just in diseases. Hopefully not another pandemic, but disease overall.”

RGA conducts substance abuse study

The RGA recently completed a study on substance use and its impact on mortality. The panelists are expected to bring more research on the broader risk factors Terry outlined.

The session will include a high-level look at where mortality trends are headed, with an emphasis on these disruptive forces and their implications for insurers’ strategic planning. For executives, the challenge will be to translate shifting mortality patterns into product innovation, capital strategy, and investor communication.

For an industry that promises financial protection based on decades-long forecasts, even small shifts in mortality assumptions can have large impacts on the balance sheet. Longer life expectancy can strain annuity portfolios, while shorter life expectancy can affect life insurance profitability and consumer trust.

“The big story here is adaptation,” Terry said. “The models have to evolve as the environment does.”

That evolution will be on display next week as the industry confronts mortality not just as an actuarial exercise but as a strategic business risk. Medicine, mental health, climate, and social change shape these risks as much as biology.

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