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ISCS - FAQs

What is ISCS?
What does ISCS do?
Who owns ISCS?
What does ISCS cost?
How does ISCS work?
Are all companies eligible to participate in the ISCS?
What are the benefits available to companies that choose to participate in the ISCS?
How can I learn more?

What is ISCS?

The Impairment Study Capture System (ISCS) is a database and reporting system that is intended to provide the foundation for the industry to measure, in a comprehensive and consistent manner, insurance experience associated with specific medical impairments, combinations of impairments, or other populations that are important in understanding insurance risks. Using de-identified data that is aggregated from the industry, ISCS is a unique asset that supports the underwriting and risk classification process with sound data and actuarial methods. It serves as an information resource available for such investigations, and is cumulative in nature. That means that the ISCS will continue to build over time, providing a richer source of mortality information over a significant time horizon.

What does ISCS do?

The ISCS can support the research that provides specific mortality experience results that are valuable in developing underwriting guidelines, justifying the risk selection process for specific impairments, and justify the overall process of medical underwriting as it is performed in the North American life insurance industry. Recent examples of impairment studies that were based in part or in whole upon ISCS data are:

Alcohol Abuse and Liver Enzymes (AALE)
Elevated Blood Pressure (EBP)
Diabetes Mellitus (DM)
Cardiac
Aviation/Hazardous Sports

Future studies are planned based on available ISCS data, and specific areas of interest.

Who owns ISCS?

The data is owned by MIB Group, as is the software and other intellectual property. Research initiatives are coordinated, prioritized and overseen by the Mortality and Morbidity Liaison Committee (MMLC), a group of insurance industry professionals appointed from:

The Mortality and Morbidity subgroup of the American Academy of Insurance Medicine (AAIM)
The Underwriters Experience Study Committee of the Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU)
The Individual Life Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries (SOA)

Since 1999, all MMLC-coordinated research is published in industry technical journals (i.e., On the Risk, Journal of Insurance Medicine), for the general benefit of the US and Canadian life insurance industry.

What does ISCS cost?

The development, maintenance, and use of ISCS in research is funded by a small part of the membership fee paid by the MIB membership. No other charges are levied for the development, maintenance, or use of the ISCS in MMLC-approved research, and research results are published for the common benefit of the industry.

How does ISCS work?

The ISCS is based upon three "data flows," each of which originates within MIB data sources, and is sent to companies that participate in the ISCS:

For companies that choose to participate, MIB captures a copy of medical impairment record submitted by these companies during the ordinary course of use of MIB's industry-wide anti-fraud database. MIB member companies are obliged to update the MIB medical impairment database whenever medical or other information that is relevant to health or longevity is developed. This can occur during the course of underwriting life, health or other insurance where MIB authorization has been obtained prior to underwriting. This data flow is termed the "collection step." Data returned to MIB for inclusion in the ISCS database is de-identified at this step, where no individual can be linked to the policy and mortality information stored. ISCS data is used only in an aggregated form, never for underwriting individual cases, and never for retrieval with respect to any individual.
The data captured by MIB in step 1 is returned to these companies for completion of a structured input record, where information relative to policy characteristics and additional demographic information is requested. Only applications that resulted in placed policies are included in the dataset requested from participating companies. This data flow is termed the "returns step."
On a periodic basis, data obtained from companies and input into the ISCS in step 2 above is organized and returned to participating companies for update. Relative to current active/termination status. Termination by Death is especially important to capture at this step. This data flow is termed the "updates step."

Data received and input to the ISCS from these data flows is scrubbed and validated for completeness, consistency, and correctness with the coding standard. MIB Solutions' Actuarial and Statistical Research Group uses software developed specifically for supporting the ISCS to examine each data contribution be participating closely for adherence to minimum quality standards. Once accepted and added to the ISCS, a company's experience is available for use in impairment studies.

Are all companies eligible to participate in the ISCS?

At this time, all companies that use MIB in the underwriting of individual life products are eligible for to participate in the ISCS. Only individual life policies are subject to inclusion in the ISCS database. To date, and for the foreseeable future, the research deliverables developed from the ISCS data source will be based on mortality experience of individual life business.

What are the benefits available to companies that choose to participate in the ISCS?

Companies choose to participate in the ISCS for three reasons:

As part of an integrated effort to support industry research initiatives;
An interest in supporting the science upon which current underwriting and risk selection techniques rest;
In order to get insight into a company's own experience, relative to the industry's for the impairments studied, for ensuring that anti-selection, misapplied underwriting guidelines, and other risk-management issues are under control.

How can I learn more?

Please contact Lauretta G. Ray, Data Coordinator for ISCS, with any questions on the Impairment Study Capture System. She can be reached at lray@mib.com.