Definition
A projected mortality table is a mortality table that combines a base table of observed mortality rates with an improvement scale of assumed future mortality decline, producing the mortality assumption that actuarial pricing and projections actually apply to forward-looking calculations.
Why it matters
A base table describes mortality conditions at a single moment; a mortality improvement scale describes how those conditions are expected to evolve. Neither is sufficient for forward-looking pricing on its own — the projected table is the construction that combines them. This is the table in use, explicitly or implicitly, behind any forward-looking annuity quote, pension valuation, or lifetime income projection.
How it works
A projected mortality table is built by taking a base mortality table for a specific calendar year — for example, the Pri-2012 pension table, anchored to a 2012 base — and applying a mortality improvement scale — for example, MP-2021 — to project the rates forward to the year of valuation and beyond. The same projection method, applied to different base tables or different improvement scales, produces materially different projected tables; for the focal individual at age 65, reasonable combinations can move expected lifespan by a year or more. Projected tables come in two structural forms. A generational projected table indexes mortality by both age and birth year, treating each cohort separately and assigning each its own projected mortality trajectory. A two-dimensional projected table indexes mortality by age and calendar year directly, producing the same underlying projection but with a different lookup structure. Both forms are equivalent in their forward-looking output; the choice between them is operational rather than analytical. Projected tables are the appropriate construction for any pricing application looking more than a few years forward, which describes essentially all lifetime income arrangements.
In practice
A projected mortality table is what an individual is implicitly trusting when they receive a lifetime income quote — the price reflects the carrier's or actuary's assumption about how long the individual is likely to live, including how mortality is expected to improve over their remaining life. The practical questions: which base table was used, which improvement scale was applied, what year the table was projected to, and whether the table is generational or two-dimensional. These questions are answerable for any institutional product. A professional involved in a fiduciary evaluation of in-plan annuity options should be able to characterize each carrier's projected mortality table; differences across carriers in mortality basis contribute to pricing differences that are otherwise hard to source.
In the Longevity Standard Framework
A projected mortality table is supporting vocabulary in the Longevity Standard framework. The framework's actuarial engine uses a Gompertz mortality assumption with SOA credibility scaling — a parametric form chosen for analytical tractability and for stability across the parameter sensitivities the framework explores. The Gompertz parameterization with the focal female m=89/b=10 produces a survival curve consistent with contemporary projected mortality tables for annuitant populations; this is the configuration on which every published focal-individual finding rests, and changes to mortality basis are documented as part of the parameter set for any deviating claim.
Related terms
- Mortality table
- Period life table
- Cohort life table
- Mortality improvement scale
- Mortality improvement
- SOA mortality research
- Life expectancy
- Survival curve