Lessons Learned From Pandemics

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with other major pandemics such as HIV/AIDS and the 1918 influenza pandemic, has highlighted critical challenges and opportunities that continue to reshape global perspectives and responses. These events have also had notable implications for the actuarial profession, affecting all practice areas. Drawing from its work on pandemic-related issues, the International Actuarial Association (IAA) has identified several key themes that have emerged from examining the effects of pandemics on actuarial practice. To address these, the IAA’s Pandemic Task Force and the Mortality Virtual Forum have produced four key papers:  

• Lessons Learned from Pandemics 
• Implications of COVID-19 Protection Gaps 
• Implications of COVID-19 Data and Pandemic Modeling (to be released in Q1 2025)
• Excess Deaths Analysis: A technical paper reviewing mortality data from 21 countries and exploring various methods for calculating excess deaths.