‘Excess Mortality’ Continuing Surge Causes Concerns

• ‘Excess Mortality’ Continuing Surge Causes Concerns
  by Doug Bailey, https://insurancenewsnet.com/, 26 Oct 2023
  Despite some signs that excess mortality rates are declining, life insurance executives and actuaries believe the numbers are alarming and could continue to drag earnings and surge death claims for years to come.
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  Excess mortality is the difference between the total number of deaths for a specific time period and the number that would have been expected. The numbers were naturally forecasted to climb during the pandemic, but some industry and health authorities are concerned the rates haven’t greatly diminished as COVID infection rates have declined.
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  Life insurers paid record levels of claims in 2021 as the pandemic drove mortality higher and the issue was widely cited in earnings reports as the drag on profits. In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, the industry distributed a record $100.28 billion in total death benefits, according to BestLink. The higher-than-normal payouts began in 2020, the first year of the pandemic when insurers saw death benefits rise 15.4% , the biggest one-year increase since the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. The 2021 increase was 10.8%, but fell during the first nine months of 2022, from $74.27 billion in the same period in 2021. But that’s still higher than the $59.18 billion paid out during the same period in 2019 before the pandemic hit, according to BestLink.
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