Featured Article

Research & technical | Research & technical notes

2025 US Public Pension Mortality Assumption Benchmarking

In August 2024, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA) released a comprehensive survey outlining the mortality assumptions used by many of the largest public pension systems in the United States. To help put these assumptions into context, Club Vita modeled the life expectancy (LE) at age 65 for both males and females based on each system’s reported assumptions.

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All News and insights

All the latest information, news and research from the Club Vita team.

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Explainers | External publications

Beware the Flaw of Averages: Hidden Longevity Diversity can Materially Change Decision-making

Insurers have been investing heavily in data analytics in recent years across all their business lines, with bulk annuities being no exception.

1 December 2020

Explainers | Expert response

VitaMins: Society of Actuaries’ MP-2020

How long people are expected to live (their longevity) is a crucial assumption for actuaries calculating the future liabilities of pension plans and books of life or health insurance policies.

19 November 2020

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 20-11: US COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths

In this edition of Top Charts, Erik Pickett looks at the relationship between case numbers, hospitalization rates and deaths caused by COVID-19.

16 November 2020

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 20-10: COVID-19 compared to other leading causes of death

In this edition of Top Charts, Erik Pickett examines how the numbers of COVID-19 deaths compare to other leading causes of death in the UK, US and Canada.

30 October 2020

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins: Representativeness of data

With most of the world still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, much attention is now focused on the development of a safe and effective vaccine. Never in our memories have clinical trials received so many column inches and the subject of representativeness of sample data is top of many minds.

6 October 2020

Opinion & experiences | Behavioral economics blogs

As-if thinking – does Batman use Zoom?

In his latest blog, Erik Pickett looks how his former life as a street performer has helped him in his professional life, and asks, does the same experience still help in the age of Zoom?

15 September 2020

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 20-08: Life expectancy doesn’t tell the whole story

In this edition of Top Charts, Erik Pickett explains why there's more than meets the eye when it comes to life expectancy.

28 August 2020

General interest | Pandemic updates

How different American states have experienced COVID-19 so far

In this article Erik Pickett and Dan Reddy explore how COVID-19 is being experienced differently across the different states of America.

21 August 2020

Opinion & experiences | Behavioral economics blogs

The survivorship bias – who’s left?

In his latest blog on cognitive biases affecting the actuarial world, Erik Pickett looks at the survivorship bias: the tendency to assume subjects that made it through a survival process are typical of the group that began the process.

7 July 2020

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: Mental health – looking after body and mind

It is widely accepted that the mind and body are closely interlinked. In this article we look at the link between mental and physical health patterns and how these may influence future longevity trends.

18 June 2020

Business updates | Press releases

Club Vita Appoints Jennifer Haid CEO of International Team

Club Vita, the international leader in longevity data analytics, today announced that Jennifer Haid has joined Club Vita’s international team as Chief Executive Officer.

16 June 2020

Business updates | Press releases

Club Vita to Provide Longevity Analytics through ProVal

Club Vita, the international leader in longevity analytics, today announced an integration partnership with WinTech, a leader in retirement valuation and administration software.

3 June 2020

Research & technical | Research & technical notes

Public vs Private - Is there a sector effect in post-retirement mortality?

In this paper we show there is significant diversity of longevity experience for pension plans within both the public and private sectors in both the UK and Canada.

22 May 2020

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 20-05: US 2020 cumulative deaths

In this edition of Top Charts, Dan Reddy discusses the effect COVID-19 is having on 2020 cumulative deaths.

15 May 2020

Business updates | Press releases

Segal to offer Club Vita’s longevity service to plan sponsors

Club Vita, the international leader in longevity analytics, today announced an agreement with Segal, a leading employee benefits consulting firm.

6 May 2020

Opinion & experiences | Behavioral economics blogs

The myside bias –why is it so hard to change our minds?

From working-at-home practices to an awareness of how to wash our hands, from the availability and funding of health care to whether life goes on in the absence of professional sports

30 April 2020

Opinion & experiences | Pandemic updates

Socioeconomic effects of COVID-19

The number of Google searches for the word unprecedented has recently spiked to unprecedented levels.

6 April 2020

Opinion & experiences | Behavioral economics blogs

Exponential growth and an appreciation for the logarithm

Erik Pickett discusses exponential growth in his latest blog.

26 March 2020

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: Vitamin D: The “sunshine” vitamin

Dietary sources of Vitamin D are limited, with around 90% of our usual intake coming from sunlight.

3 March 2020

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 20-02: US cancer improvements

In this edition of Top Charts US, Erik Pickett asks whether cancer mortality has been improving in the US in recent years?

24 February 2020

Opinion & experiences | Personal blogs

Doing the Cupid Shuffle

Douglas Anderson discusses running, resolutions and the preventive benefits of healthy habits.

5 February 2020

Explainers | External publications

Zooming in on ZIP Codes: Using Socio-Economic Factors to Tailor U.S. Pension Plan Longevity Assumption

The United States is a diverse nation made up of many people with distinctly different characteristics.

1 January 2020

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 19-12: How harsh are the winters in Canada, the UK and the US?

In this edition of Top Charts International, Richard Brown, Erik Pickett and Daniel Reddy discuss whether more people die in the winter than in the summer.

17 December 2019

Opinion & experiences | Behavioral economics blogs

The availability heuristic - forefront of your mind, forefront of your opinion

Erik Pickett discusses the availability heuristic in his latest blog.

12 December 2019

Opinion & experiences | Behavioral economics blogs

The outcome bias: the adversary of insurance

In this blog, Erik Pickett discusses a cognitive bias known as the outcome bias.

23 October 2019

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins: A tale of two Springfields

Springfield, Virginia and Springfield, Missouri share the same name, but they don’t share much else.

18 October 2019

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 19-10: Mortality inequality in the US

In this edition of Top Charts US, Erik Pickett presents a chart exploring the mortality gap between rich and poor.

15 October 2019

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: Getting clued up on flu

Every year significantly more people die during the winter months than at other times of the year, and recently we have seen huge variability in ‘excess winter deaths’, potentially impacted by the severity of the flu. In this issue of VitaMins Health, we explore the subject of flu.

3 October 2019

Opinion & experiences | VitaMins

In praise of maps

Club Vita Founder, Douglas Anderson, explains how maps are a way of exploring the connections between past sociology and longevity outcomes.

3 October 2019

Explainers | What is Club Vita?

What is Club Vita?

In the first video of our series Douglas Anderson, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Club Vita is interviewed by Mike Kreps, Groom Law Group, to find out 'What is Club Vita?'.

3 October 2019