Mortality experience in the elderly in the Impairment Study Capture System.

Using the dataset of the Impairment Study Capture System, we analyzed mortality experience and underwriting on policies issued at ages 70 and up. Policy issue dates were from 1990-1998 and observation ran from 5-12 years. There were 1430 deaths in a total exposure of over 102,000 policy-years. Nearly two thirds of the total exposure was for females. Despite the use of expected mortality differentiated by smoking status, the mortality ratio for smokers was much higher than for nonsmokers. Both the type of underwriting (paramedical and medical compared to nonmedical and simplified) and the underwriting risk class confirmed the intended effects of underwriting. Variation of mortality ratio by duration after issue did not contradict the select period slope of the 2001 VBT.