MAT: A new Tool for Life Insurance Underwriting

In this paper presented by BioSignia, Inc., a study is reported that demonstrates yielding a higher quality of preferred class risks when utilizing Internet-based marekting.

The evolution of the life insurance industry is requiring a robust risk assessment tool that not only could streamline the underwriting process and reduce the processing cost, but also improve the risk assessment quality. The Mortality Assessment Technology (MAT) introduced in this paper was developed for that purpose. MAT is based on multiple evidence-based disease prediction models and a conversion to predicated mortality ratio (PMR). By applying MAT into a national longitudinal cohort dataset, it was shown that MAT accurately predicted mortality and yielded better mortality risk discrimination power then the conventional method. More specifically, the preferred class defined by MAT had significantly lower mortality outcomes than the preferred class defined by conventionally used criteria. It is believed that MAT could play significant roles in the evolution of underwriting from a paper driven process into an automatic, computerized, intelligent decision process.