Resources for Actuaries

Research And More

LIMRA and LOMA provide a wealth of services for today’s actuaries. This page links you to these helpful resources:

Research reports and articles
Peer forums
Professional development programs

LIMRA and LOMA conduct research in areas directly supporting actuarial knowledge and decision-making, including our research partnership with the Society of Actuaries. We work together to provide you with current data related to actuarial experience for life, health, and annuity lines of business. We can also accelerate your industry knowledge and on-the-job effectiveness with conferences, peer forums, and professional development programs developed by industry experts.

Related Benchmark Research

Product Development

SOA Study: Understanding the Product Development Process of Individual Life Insurance and Annuity Companies (2018)

Use this Society of Actuaries (SOA)-sponsored study to understand and improve the product development process for individual life insurance and annuities.

Engaging Mortality

Use mortality to build customer engagement right into your products — you don’t have to rely solely on customer engagement programs.

Simplified Issue Made Simple (2017)

Learn more about one of the hot topics in the life insurance industry: simplified issue!

U.S. Critical Illness Insurance: Product Profiles (2015)

The critical illness market is constantly changing as carriers continue to introduce new and updated critical illness products. What does the critical illness product landscape look like today?

Product Development: 2010 (2011)

Has the Great Recession spawned product innovation? This report surveyed companies to find out.

Guaranteed Uncertainty: Socioeconomic Influences on Product Development and Distribution in the Life Insurance Industry (2011)

LIMRA and the Society of Actuaries sponsored a joint research study that identifies the key socioeconomic trends influencing the need and demand for the life insurance industry's products and services.

Individual Life Product Development Process: The Need for Speed (2007)

Getting products to market faster and more efficiently is increasingly important in meeting strategic goals. See the average timelines for taking various life products from idea to implementation and learn what companies have done to improve the individual life product development process.

U.S. Individual Life Insurance Sales

Size it up — quarterly U.S. individual life insurance sales results reflecting 85 percent of the premium market, as well as annual industry estimates and the comprehensive U.S. Individual Life Insurance Yearbook.

U.S. Long-Term Care Insurance Persistency

Long-lasting benefit? Find out about U.S. industry long-term care insurance product-persistency experience benchmarking, product development, and planning.

U.S. Individual Life Insurance Persistency

Must all good things come to an end? See what's happening with U.S. individual life insurance product persistency at the industry level for benchmarking, product development, and planning - including guaranteed issue and simplified issue.

Combination Products

Individual Life Combination Products

A detailed look at the state of the combination product market.

Consumer Perspectives on Long-Term Care and Insurance

Gain insight into consumer perspectives on life combination and long-term care insurance, the choice to receive care at home versus in a facility, and misunderstandings surrounding ownership of long term care coverage.

COVID-19 Social Distance and Distribution: Firm Survey Summary of Results

This report disseminates information on challenges and best practices for insurance, annuities, and investment distribution in light of COVID-19.

COVID-19 Social Distance and Distribution: Advisor Survey Summary of Results

This report disseminates information on challenges and best practices for insurance, annuities, and investment distribution in light of COVID-19.

Underwriting

Transforming Underwriting: Automated Underwriting Company Practices for Life Insurance in 2017

As technology advances, expectations for faster, simpler transactions are increasing. Automated underwriting can help companies meet these expectations.

TechTopics: Spotlight on Automated Underwriting (2017)

In this update, we share some of what we’re seeing and hearing about advances in automated underwriting in the life insurance industry.

Automating Underwriting for Life Insurance: Company Practices Study (2016)

Automated underwriting solutions offer a way for companies to access the information they need to make informed decisions and issue policies faster, with benefits for all stakeholders.

U.S. Individual Life Insurance: COVID-19 Mortality Experience Study

Explore the impact of COVID-19 on individual life insurance claims experience.

U.S. Individual Life — Quarterly COVID-19 Reported Claims Updates

These quarterly reports provide an update of COVID-19 and pandemic related reported claims. Data from 32 companies representing approximately 72 percent of the industry face amount in-force are included in this analysis. LIMRA, RGA, TAI, and the SOA jointly collected the data supporting the results of this report.

US Individual Life — COVID-19 Mortality Experience — Cause of Death Report

Learn about the results of a cause of death (COD) analysis focused on how the rates of death from various causes were impacted throughout the pandemic period, through the fourth quarter of 2021.

Analytics

Center of Excellence for Analytics

Identify risks and opportunities by tapping into LIMRA’s predictive analytic expertise and community.

The People Imperative: Technology and Talent in the Insurance Industry

What does it take to hire and retain the best technology talent? Technology represents one of the biggest opportunities and threats to the life and annuity industry.

The People Imperative: Advanced Analytics Roles in the Insurance Industry

Data science and advanced analytics will drive growth in the life and annuity industry. This report discusses talent trends and offers strategies to attract and retain employees with these skills.

Inside Insurance Analytics: Ethical, Methodological, and Risk Management Best Practices

LIMRA asked analytics leaders in the life and retirement industries about their best practices for handling ethical, methodological, and other analytics-related risks. Here are our findings.

The Emerging Technology Series

This series of reports focuses on critical emerging technologies topics for the financial services industry, as organizations pivot to meet current and post-pandemic needs.

Tech Evolution: Themes, Trends, and Considerations Shaping the Future of Technology in Financial Services

This paper offers a broad set of questions and considerations for organizations to keep top of mind in their technology journey, as they adapt to changing realities and position themselves for future growth.

LOMA Research Resources

LOMA Research Briefs

Concise research summaries on a variety of industry topics, including actuarial issues.

LOMA Quick Queries

Peer surveys from LOMA’s committees including actuary-related topics.

Actuarial Compensation Report

This special report pulls data for actuarial positions featured in the U.S. Executive and U.S. Non-Executive Compensation Surveys.

Service Turnaround Times Survey - North America

Life insurance and annuity turnaround times study by product.

Upcoming Related Events

Life Insurance Conference

This premier conference offers life insurance conference professionals the opportunity to network with peers and leading industry experts while participating in cross-functional learning.

Retirement Industry Conference

This important conference covers the latest strategic, sales, product, operations and administration, marketing and distribution trends as well as regulatory issues that impact the retirement industry.

Supplemental Health, DI & LTC Conference

The Supplemental Health, DI & LTC Conference provides a unique opportunity to consider a cross-functional view of supplemental health products, individual disability insurance, and long-term care standalone and combination products.

Marketing Forum

This event focuses on areas critical to today’s marketers, including Digital Initiatives, Consumer Insights, Customer Experience, and overall Marketing Strategy.

LIMRA Annual Conference

The LIMRA Annual Conference is one of the largest gatherings of senior executives representing diverse sectors of the financial services industry.

Study Groups and Committees

Advanced Analytics Study Group

Study Groups are a great way to network with others in the industry

LOMA Chief Actuary Committee

Provides a forum for Chief Actuaries to discuss trends, strategies, and best practices in all areas that impact chief actuaries, including product development, risk management, financial reporting, investments, tax, talent management and development, education, professionalism, technology and other issues facing the industry.

LOMA New Business Committee

Assists member companies in the improvement of their new-business operations in areas such as policy issue, underwriting, compliance, and technology by way of sharing information as well as discussing various methods of operation and practices.

LOMA Product Development Management Committee

Directs its primary attention to improving the annuity product development/management process within the industry, improving product design in order to better meet consumer/distribution needs, gaining a better understanding of industry related issues. The product focus is primarily on individual annuity products with a lesser focus on individual life insurance products.

LOMA LIC Finance & Actuarial Committee

A committee of the Life Insurer's Council, the Finance and Actuarial Committee is an opportunity for members of small and medium-sized life insurance companies to network and develop resources with peers.

Education and Training

Strategic Leadership

Engage new thinking, new skills, and new capabilities for today's leaders.

Underwriting short online courses

Taking underwriters to the next level, this series of short online courses covers over 200+ topics (medical, non-medical, and financial risks) in all areas of underwriting, and has been carefully designed to complement LOMA courses as well as the FALU designation.

Underwriting Life and Health Insurance (UND 386)

UND 386 introduces risk assessment principles applied to underwriting individual and group life and health insurance, including specialized policies and supplemental coverages.

Related News

LIMRA: Registered Index-Linked Annuity Sales Break Quarterly Sales Record Again

For the second consecutive quarter, registered index-linked annuity (RILA) products set a new sales record. RILA sales were $12.6 billion, up 19% year-over-year and 11% higher than the prior record-setting quarter, according to LIMRA’s Third Quarter 2023 U.S. Retail Annuity Sales Survey.

Are In-Plan Annuities at a Tipping Point?

Today, the vast majority of defined contribution (DC) plans — an estimated 9 in 10 — have no in-plan option for generating lifetime-guaranteed income for retiring employees. Recent LIMRA research shows this trend may be changing

LIMRA and LOMA Announce New Members to Its Life Insurance and Annuity Advisory Boards

LIMRA and LOMA today announced the new members of its Life Insurance Advisory Board and Annuity Advisory Board. These advisory boards offer insight on the business challenges facing companies to help the association better understand and adapt its member benefits program to serve the evolving needs of its members.

LIMRA: Third Quarter Individual Life Insurance Premium Tops $3.7 billion in the Third Quarter, Up 5%

With a majority of carriers reporting higher results in the third quarter, total individual life insurance new annualized premium increased 5% to $3.7 billion year-over-year, according to the preliminary results from LIMRA’s U.S. Retail Individual Life Insurance Sales surveys and estimates. Similarly, 6 in 10 carriers experienced policy sales growth, driving number of policies sold to increase 4% in the third quarter.

LIMRA: Strong Performances in Fixed Indexed and Fixed-Rate Deferred Annuities Drive Robust Overall Sales Results in Third Quarter 2023

With economic conditions continuing to be favorable for annuities, total sales increased 11% year-over-year to $89.4 billion in the third quarter 2023, according to preliminary results from LIMRA’s U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey.

Research And More

Sales Results and Forecasts - Individual Insurance

Sales Results and Forecasts - Workplace Benefits

U.S. Persistency Studies

International Persistency Studies