BRET SWANSON
In the past few days, the Society of Actuaries issued its May 2023 report, which updates U.S. group life insurance mortality through December 2022.
Thrilling, we know.
It’s a depressing topic, but is essential to explore if we truly want to understand the Covid era and avoid similar mistakes.
In past reports, we showed that in 2020, the initial Covid year, Americans who were older and more unhealthy died in large numbers. Then, in 2021, young and middle-age healthy people began dying at unprecedentedly high rates.
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By 2022, the milder Omicron variant dominated. One might have presumed, therefore, that mortality would have reverted to normal, or even below normal, to make up for the two prior terrible years. And yet the new SOA figures, which aggregate around 90% of all U.S. employer-based group term life policies, show that 2022 was another awful year – especially for young adults.