The market is now moving to embrace lifetime income stream solutions that include some element of mortality pooling. Optimum Pensions has engaged the Actuaries Institute to undertake the development and publication, under its auspices, of a set of mortality tables for Australian retirees. The work will be carried out by Rice Warner on behalf of the Actuaries Institute and the results made publicly available.

Data provided to the study will be kept confidential and will only be included in the overall study in such a way that individual contributions are not identifiable. Rice Warner is also prepared to enter into individual non-disclosure agreements.

The specific format of the resultant tables will be driven by the extent and quality of the data that is obtained. We are therefore keen to obtain the biggest and best set of data that we can.

The Actuaries Institute is excited about this project, as it is being pro-active rather than responding to government requests for responses.

It is highly socially desirable, as it will hopefully remove one of the major impediments to actuaries being able to confidently certify premium rates for lifetime pensions and annuities in future.