Description: Research Objective The Society of Actuaries Research Institute General Insurance Research Committee is seeking researchers to identify and analyze the various by-component inflationary forces on pet insurance affordability in the United States and Canada. In addition, we seek ideation of potential solutions that are likely to improve the affordability of pet insurance.

Description: On March 31, 2022, the SOA Research Institute assembled an expert panel to discuss key considerations related to climate risk analysis applied to life and health insurance companies. The panelists were selected to represent a wide and diverse array of opinions, and were encouraged to contribute from their own, individual perspective working in areas such as insurance, reinsurance, state regulation, consultancy, meteorology, and climate finance. A summary of the main discussion points is presented in this report.

Description: A literature review was performed on mortality improvement, socioeconomic differences in mortality and their links to specific causes of death, and methods for analysis. It highlighted the fact that socioeconomic status (e.g., income and education) is closely linked to differences in mortality and that the longevity gap between socioeconomic groups is growing over time. It also informed the selection of key variables and the need to view mortality improvement as a complex interaction between specific causes of death.

Description: This report models and forecasts future mortality improvements in China, by geographical regions, as well as by causes of death. Deaths and population exposures data provided by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention was used for the period 2004–2019.

Description: This primer paper seeks to introduce and update the actuarial profession to the topic of insurance policies and genetics and study the impacts on insurance and potential responses.

Description: In this report, we consider high-level results from provisional mortality data released from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 2021, including looking at changes by sex and age group.

Description: Call for essays on catastrophe modeling for life & health insurance focusing on impacts of the L.A. wildfires. Topics include risk modeling, insurability considerations, catastrophe event management, and AI's role. Submissions open until June 2025, offering up to $10,000 in awards for selected essays. Publication will follow with author attribution.

Description: This paper compares two mortality projection models – the latest version of the CMI Mortality Projections Model and the latest version of MIM-2021.Both models were applied to data for England & Wales and the US, and the results were compared.

Description: To broaden knowledge in emerging issues and topics, the REC is seeking researchers to submit one or more proposals. Sample topics below have been identified as focus areas by the REC. The description of each of the topics has deliberately been written to be brief and open-ended to give researchers sufficient latitude in the development of their proposals. Researchers should not feel constrained by these topics, as many other relevant topics continuously emerge.

Description: In 2024, 27 disasters in the United States resulted in damages exceeding $1 billion. These disasters included two winter storms, one wildfire event, one drought/heatwave event, one flooding event, six tornado outbreaks, 11 severe weather/hail events and five hurricanes. The costliest of these events was Hurricane Helene, which resulted in 219 deaths and cost $79.6 billion , although the early 2025 wildfires in the Los Angeles, California area threaten to exceed this economic cost. In Canada, insured catastrophic losses totaled C$8.5 billion in 2024, making it the costliest year on record for the country. Outside the United States and Canada, Cyclone Chido killed more than 1,000 people, a heatwave in Bangladesh impacted 33 million people and a drought in Columbia has had a significant impact on the economy there .