COVID-19 accelerated mortality shocks and the impact on life insurance: the Italian situation

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic caused an alarming mortality stress. The evidence shows that a significant proportion of people who die from Covid-19 are in a frail state. According to this consideration, we assume that the mortality shocks are related to a group of the individuals with some co-morbidities at Covid-19 diagnosis. In other words, the mortality shocks present a specific characterisation, which consists of a causal connection with pre-existing conditions, and the phenomenon could be described as a mortality acceleration. In this paper, an Accelerated Mortality Model is proposed in order to capture the different effects on mortality that depend on the evolution of the pandemic and the presence of co-morbidities at diagnosis. Furthermore, we assess the impact of Covid-19 mortality acceleration on a set of traditional life insurance contracts. We observe that, although mortality acceleration by Covid-19 affects more markedly the elderly and unhealthy sub-populations, it could be considered as a temporary shock with a limited impact on the life insurance market.