Writing in USA Today, Dr. Pierre Kory and Mary Beth Pfeiffer discuss a troubling trend in life insurance data showing a massive spike in excess deaths starting in the Fall of 2021.
Life insurance actuaries are reporting that many more people are dying – still – than in the years before the pandemic. And while deaths during COVID-19 had largely occurred among the old and infirm, this new wave is hitting prime-of-life people hard.
No one knows precisely what is driving the phenomenon, but there is an inexplicable lack of urgency to find out. A concerted investigation is in order.
Deaths among young Americans documented in employee life insurance claims should alone set off alarms. Among working people 35 to 44 years old, a stunning 34% more died than expected in the last quarter of 2022, with above-average rates in other working-age groups, too.
“COVID-19 claims do not fully explain the increase,” a Society of Actuaries report says.
From 2020 through 2022, there were more excess deaths proportionally among white-collar than blue-collar workers: 19% versus 14% above normal. The disparity nearly doubled among top-echelon workers in the fourth quarter of 2022, U.S. actuaries reported.
And there was an extreme and sudden increase in worker mortality in the fall of 2021 even as the nation saw a precipitous drop in COVID-19 deaths from a previous wave. In the third quarter of 2021, deaths among workers ages 35-44 reached a pandemic peak of 101% above – or double – the three-year pre-COVID baseline. In two other prime working-age groups, mortality was 79% above expected.
The piece goes on to explore data from the UK and Australia, showing that this trend is not only happening in the United States. Although the authors don’t venture to guess what may be causing this spike in excess deaths, the timeline and demographics closely align with the global Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which could at least partly explain the trend.
Life insurance data suggests something happened in the fall of 2021 in workplaces, especially among white-collar workers. These are people whose education, income level and access to health care would predict better outcomes. The executive of a large Indiana life insurance company was clearly troubled by what he said was a 40% increase in the third quarter of 2021 in those ages 18-64.
“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference in January 2022. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”
Governments and regulatory agencies should cooperate with life insurers to investigate this trend at the national and multinational level. Without a thorough and collaborative exploration, we can’t know what’s killing us – or how to stop it.
You can read the piece here.