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A statistical study of the variability of sickness data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2012

Extract

1.1. In 1979 the first set of graduated sickness rates derived from the data supplied by a number of insurance companies was published by the PHI Sub-Committee (C.M.I.R. 4, 1979).

Sickness is a much more complex phenomenon than mortality. I get the impression from working on the 1972–75 sickness experience of, as it were, a certain looseness and lack of coherence in the data which I have not found in mortality data. Some of this could be due to the much smaller size of the data and to the heterogeneity of the experience. Much of the latter has been removed in the Standard experience of 1975–78 but, not having studied these data, I can say nothing about the effect of this. It is therefore not surprising that the PHI Sub-Committee had considerable doubts “about the possibility of judging the success of the graduation by applying standard statistical tests” such as those normally used for mortality data.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1986

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