COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group

We are delighted that Nicky Draper has been nominated for Honorary Fellowship of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, endorsed by IFoA Council. Nicola has shown extraordinary commitment to the actuarial profession over many years of volunteering, including serving as co-chair of this group in 2020-21. We encourage voting members of the IFoA to vote in the upcoming Council elections and, separately, to vote for the election of Nicola as an Honorary Fellow.

The CMI is looking for volunteers to join the Executive Committee. This is an exciting opportunity for individuals with an interest in the CMI’s work on mortality and morbidity, and how this provides value to a wide base of subscribers. The role allows for opportunity to oversee to the work of the CMI and its investigation committees whilst also to ensuring the strategic direction of the CMI remains appropriate. We would like to hear from you if you are interested or if you would like to find out more. More details on the role itself, how to apply and who to contact if you'd like to discuss this further can be found on the IFoA Volunteer Vacancies page: https://lnkd.in/gKVR5ekN The deadline for applications is Monday 8 July.

We have created a condolences book at the following link: https://lnkd.in/g4gt5dai If you would like to send a message of condolence or remembrance please add your contribution to the above. We will then pull all the messages together into a remembrance book for Adele's family. Please feel free to share with everyone who knew Adele. Institute and Faculty of Actuaries COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group Gen Re

The CMI has today published its weekly mortality monitor for week 4 of 2024. All mortality monitors available from: https://lnkd.in/gepZwWn

Rest in peace, Adele Groyer.

It is with sadness I, Louis Rossouw, have to let you know that Adele passed away late on Friday from cancer. I've known Adele since she was an actuary working at Old Mutual in Cape Town where she was a client of Gen Re. She joined Gen Re in London in 2008, where she became Head of Pricing & Research. She also took on the Regional Chief Actuary role in Canada but for health reasons she gave that up, and in 2021 she joined my team at Gen Re (Research & Analytics). She was always a great asset for anyone she worked with. She was passionate about delivering high quality, accurate and insightful work and enjoyed passing on some of her vast knowledge. Adele could also become quite passionate about technical discussions, and one would find it tricky arguing with her sometimes, most often because she was right. She also contributed greatly to her profession over the years in various roles including, articles, presentations and work for the CMI, Recently as a member of the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group, she had been particularly passionate about understanding the numbers and data and implications of the pandemic as well as about pointing out where data and numbers were misinterpreted. She continued to deliver quality work and insights until December and continued to comment on COVID-19 data even in the last couple of weeks. I will miss Adele and she leaves an irreplaceable gap in Gen Re, our profession, our industry and in many of our hearts. Our condolences are with her family, her husband and her son. Edit: I've (Louis) have captured all comments as at 16h00 UK time 9 Feb. Please add any further comments to the online remembrance book Gen Re colleagues have created for Adele: https://lnkd.in/dnfVFZW8

CMI says death rates in 2023 lowest since 2019 The Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) publishes frequent UK mortality analysis through its mortality monitors. Today’s updates cover the period to 5 January 2024. In particular, the quarterly monitor sets out results for the whole of 2023. The key points of the updates are: -> In England & Wales, mortality for 2023 was 3% higher than 2019, the pre-pandemic benchmark, but lower than in 2020, 2021 and 2022.  -> There is a striking difference in how mortality rates in 2023 compare to 2019 at different ages – ranging from 10% higher for ages 20-44 to 1% higher for ages 75-84. -> In the UK, there have been around 173,800 more registered deaths from all causes, compared to pre-pandemic, than expected from the start of the pandemic to 5 January 2024. Of these, 74,700 were registered in 2020, 49,000 in 2021, 28,000 in 2022, and 22,000 in 2023. -> Excess deaths have been falling during 2023 and were close to zero (i.e. deaths were broadly as expected) in the second half. -> There were 18,900 deaths registered in the UK in 2023 with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate. While this is broadly similar to the number of excess deaths, the relationship between excess deaths and COVID deaths has varied significantly by age and over the course of the year. Cobus Daneel, Chair of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee, said: “The fourth quarter of 2023 saw negative excess mortality for the first time since the first quarter of 2022. Overall, 2023 had the third lowest mortality rate on record – with only 2014 and 2019 being lower. However, we note that 2014 was nearly a decade ago, and if mortality had improved at the same rate as in the latter part of the 20th century, mortality rates in 2023 would have been much lower.” The mortality monitors have been updated to take account of revised population estimates that lead us to decrease our estimate of excess mortality since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This primarily affected excess deaths measured in 2022 and 2023, with excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 relatively unchanged. As previously noted, we intend to stop calculating excess mortality after this week’s monitor. While monitoring excess deaths was informative early in the pandemic, calculation of excess deaths becomes more subjective the further we get from our pre-pandemic benchmark year of 2019. We will still include standardised mortality rates in future versions of the monitor. Users will be able to see how mortality in each year compares, but we will no longer make a comparison to a pre-pandemic benchmark. All mortality monitor weekly updates are publicly available from: https://lnkd.in/gepZwWn