In March, the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) released the latest annual update to the CMI Mortality Projections Model, CMI_2020.
England and Wales’s 2020 mortality rates were on average 12% higher than in 2019 due to the pandemic. This is the largest year-on-year increase in rates since 1929, and 2020 rates were the highest since 2008.
While mortality experience in 2020 will affect actuarial calculations, it is likely to be an outlier and not indicative of the future path that rates will follow. For this reason, the core CMI_2020 model places no weight on 2020 data when projecting rates into the future.
CMI_2020’s cohort life expectancies at age 65 are about four weeks lower for males and one week lower for females than CMI_2019’s cohort life expectancies.
For more information on CMI_2020, please see the FAQs. Since April 2020, the CMI Mortality Projections Committee has produced a weekly mortality monitor (bit.ly/3eE2zWy) with a focus on ‘excess deaths’ during the pandemic.
