Handbook

This course covers the actuarial profession syllabus for survival models– with a focus on the understanding and prediction of mortality, morbidity, and longevity risks and on applications of the techniques to areas such as life, health, disability insurance, superannuation, finance, and epidemiology. Such models can be used to understand and forecast risks relating to contingent events (eg mortality, health status changes, credit defaults) - leading to more accurate quantification, pricing, and management of these risks. Topics covered include: survival models and actuarial notation; estimation of lifetime distributions; maximum likelihood estimation of transition intensities in multiple state models and intensities dependent on age and duration; graduation of crude estimates and tests of fidelity and smoothness; and models for the projection of mortality trends. The course will emphasize the implementation of the concepts using numerical computer packages. Issues around ethics and discrimination will also be considered.