EAA Web Session: "Worldwide Mortality: From Historical Trends to Future Projections"

Einleitung/Dauer

Life expectancy is a key metric for understanding mortality trends and it varies widely depending on factors such as age, gender and geography. During this websession, we will delve into the latest research and data on mortality trends and explore how they have changed over time.

Since the middle of the 20th century, world-wide mortality has steadily improved, but not at the same rate in all regions, so that clear differences can be recognised between countries. In some OECD - countries, there has even been a recent decline in mortality improvement, and the COVID-19 pandemic has at least temporarily reinforced this trend.

We analyse different age groups, their causes of death and how they coincide with mortality developments. In addition to that, we will discuss the drivers behind changes in mortality, such as advances in medicine and public health, changes in lifestyle and socioeconomic factors.

Understanding the various drivers of mortality is essential for predicting future trends and consequently for the assessment of the biometric risk in life- and pension insurance.

Our online training will also explore the implications of changing life expectancies for our work as actuaries. We will discuss how we can use data and analysis to better understand these changes and make informed decisions about the future. In this context, we also outline the strengths and limitations of the Lee-Carter model as a widely used model for predicting future mortality rates.

Last but not least, we discuss general uncertainties around future mortality, where we focus especially on the demographic and geographical factors analysed in the first part of the lecture.

Preliminary Programme
Wednesday, 28 January 2026
10:00-12:00 Topics:

• Differences in life expectancy for various countries
• Worldwide mortality trends and underlying causes of death
• Projection of future mortality rates and uncertainties of the Lee-Carter model

All the above times are given in CET (Central European Time).

Vorgehensweise und Ziele

Participants will learn about the latest mortality trends and gain insights into the use of the Lee-Carter model for projecting mortality rates, including it’s strengths and limitations.

Teilnehmer

This web session is catered to all actuaries and statisticians in the insurance industry who wish to enhance their knowledge in current mortality trends worldwide and who want to know more about the accuracy of common methods used for the projection of mortality rates.

Technical Requirements
Please check with your IT department if your firewall and computer settings support web session participation (the programme Zoom will be used for this online training). Please also make sure to join the web session with a stable internet connection.

Dozierende

Dr Johannes Schäfer
Dr Johannes Schäfer has been working as a product specialist for mortality insurance in the Life/Health R&D department of Gen Re in Cologne, Germany since 2022, where he supports Gen Re’s international clients with product design and pricing. Johannes is also part of the data pool team for biometric products and is responsible for the analyses of the annuity pool. Prior to joining Gen Re, he obtained a PhD in mathematics from the University Bonn.

Eva Odenkirchen
Eva Odenkirchen is a Senior Pricing Actuary at Gen Re in Cologne, Germany and holds a master’s degree in applied mathematics with a focus on Actuarial Science. In addition to her membership of the German Actuarial Association (DAV), she has completed training as a Certified Actuarial Data Scientist and is currently part of the Products & Analytics Team of Life/Health – Global Underwriting and R&D, with a special focus on Mortality requests. Her main responsibilities are statistical data analyses and scientific research as well as innovative product development support and giving presentations/seminars on Mortality topics.

Sprache/Kurztitel

The language of the web session will be English.

CPD Credits
For this web session, the following CPD credits are available under the CPD scheme of the relevant national actuarial association:

• Austria: 2 points
• Belgium:  2 points
• Bulgaria:  3 points
• Croatia: individual accreditation
• Czechia:  2 hours
• Denmark 2 credits
• Estonia:  2 hours
• Finland: 2 points
• France:  12 points
• Germany:  2 hours
• Greece: 3 points
• Hungary:  2 hours
• Iceland: 2 credits
• Ireland: 2 hours
• Italy: individual accreditation
• Latvia: 2 hours
• Lithuania: 2 hours
• Netherlands:  approx. 2 points (individual accreditation)
• Norway: 2 points
• Poland: 2 hours
• Portugal: 2 hours
• Serbia: 2 hours
• Slovakia:  individual accreditation
• Slovenia:  individual accreditation
• Spain: CAC: 2 hours, IAE: 2 hours
• Switzerland:  individual accreditation
• USA: SOA (Section B): up to 2.4 hours

No responsibility is taken for the accuracy of this information.