Global insurance and reinsurance broker WTW has announced the launch of a new version of its Geospatial Mortality Model (GMM), designed to provide enhanced predictive capabilities to the US pension risk transfer market.
While US pension plan sponsors already use the GMM to set longevity assumptions, this new release is now available to insurers.
By integrating the model into their operations, insurers can enhance PRT pricing, strengthen asset-liability management, and improve visibility into longevity risk.
The GMM combines pension-specific information with geographic data to generate highly flexible and predictive mortality assumptions.
Leveraging insights gleaned from where participants live, the model incorporates socioeconomic and health-related factors alongside participant-specific pension data that have been shown to be strongly predictive of life expectancy.
The model has been trained on nearly four million life-years of mortality data, including post-COVID experience through 2024, and developed by evaluating over 200 socioeconomic factors to specifically identify the health, wealth, and lifestyle factors most predictive of longevity.
By leveraging this updated data, WTW aims to provide insurers with the precision they need to secure a strategic edge in the competitive PRT market, optimise their asset-liability management, and mitigate the financial impact of unexpected mortality trends.
Beth Ashmore, Senior Managing Director, Retirement, WTW, commented: “We are thrilled to partner with our colleagues in Insurance Consulting and Technology to expand the reach of WTW’s Geospatial Mortality Model (GMM).
“GMM has already provided pension plan sponsors better insights into their plans’ unique longevity, and we’re excited to bring this enhanced capability to the insurance market.”
Karen Grote, Managing Director and North American Life Division Leader, Insurance Consulting and Technology, WTW, said: “For insurers, accurate mortality assumptions are foundational to pricing and risk management.
“By making this proven model available to the insurance community, we’re giving PRT writers a powerful new way to sharpen pricing, enhance longevity risk management, and compete with greater confidence.”
