The impact of longevity risk in pension plans

Author(s)

Fabiana Lopes da Silva

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade (FEA/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-11-11

Examining board members

Gilberto de Andrade Martins; Luiz Augusto Ferreira Carneiro; Fernanda Chaves Pereira; Josenildo dos Santos; Jose Roberto Ferreira Savoia

• Advisor: Gilberto de Andrade Martins

Abstract

The evolution of increased life expectancy recorded in recent decades has been a significant achievement for the society and brought new challenges in various areas of human knowledge. Among those, living longer has impacted the technical balance of the pension plans. In the private pension entities, the timely identification of possible deviations from the assumption of mortality to the underlying reality is to ensure the solvency and the maintenance of long-term benefits. Thus, based on Lee-Carter method and approach CMI (Continuous Mortality Investigation Bureau), this study aims to estimate the factors of improvement (reduction factor of mortality) for the population covered by pension plans as well as analyze the impact of incorporating an estimated longer life expectancy on actuarial cash flow into a portfolio of defined benefits. Due to a lack of historical information about mortality tables of Brazil, the matching technique (propensity score) was used to identify the country which is the most similar to Brazil concerning relevant socioeconomic variables, in order to predict the evolution of life expectancy. This technique was applied on 21 OECD sample countries. Socioeconomic variables considered were: Fertility, GDP per capita, annual growth of GDP, Health, Unemployment, Gini, Illiteracy and Schooling. According to test results, Portugal was chosen as the basis for projections of mortality and acquisition of factors of improvement, due to the matching technique and the adherence test performed. Comparing the averages of the cash flows of the AT-2000 with and without improvement and taking into account the scenarios of interest rates of 3%, 4%, 5% and 6% a year, it was observed that not considering the improvement generates an increased actuarial flow between 7.15% and 10.51% for the simulated portfolio. The CMI method provided similar projection, and the impact varied from 7.05% to 10.32%. Even though the methods of improvement are quite different, it is important to emphasize that the results were much the same. One point that deserves concern is the issue of interest rate since, due to the declining trend in the long run more sensitive will be the impact of the projection of longevity risk. Additionally, those results were compared with the table Generational RP-2000 and BRTable SUSEP EMS. Thus, previous results show that not considering the trend of increasing life expectancy in the establishment of technical provisions can expose the private pension entities to a little bearable risk in the long term. (AU)