2018年6月に、米国の老齢・遺族・障害保険（Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance、OASDI）信託ファンドの評議会の2018年アニュアルレポートが公表されました。この270ページに及ぶ資料には多くの情報が網羅されているものの、団体就労不能保険者が関心を寄せるのは主に2つの項目です。まず、障害保険信託ファンドは、昨年のレポートに書かれていたよりも4年後の2032年に枯渇すると見込まれています。これは主として、前回のレポートに比べ、2つ目の主要項目である障害適用の前提条件が低くなったことと、またその他の基になる前提条件の変更によるものです。

障害保険信託ファンドの枯渇日は、2017年夏に報告された2028年ではなく、今回、2032年と推計されました。これは、信託ファンドから予定給付金全額が支払われなくなると想定される最初の年を示しています。国会議員が着目する鍵となる日は、障害給付と老齢・遺族年金保険の両方の信託ファンドが枯渇する2034年です。

Steve Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration (SSA), urges that an administrative change should be implemented before 2034 for both trust funds. This change would need to increase scheduled revenues by 29%, reduce scheduled benefits by 23%, or be some combination of these changes. While neither would be politically desirable, cutting benefits could have substantial impacts to group insurers that would likely need to increase claim reserves for future benefit payments on their policies. (Lower Social Security disability insurance [SSDI] benefits would mean lower benefit offsets and thus higher long-term disability [LTD] benefit payments.)

One of the underlying assumptions in the projection of the disability trust fund is the disability incidence rate. Social Security disability incidence rates tend to move with the economy. Increases in the unemployment rate generally lead to increases in new disability claims as workers who fear they will lose their jobs find ways to file for disability. The last increase in Social Security disability incidence was in 2010, just after the peak of the last U.S. recession. Unemployment rates and disability incidence rates have both been falling since that point. The Office of the Chief Actuary feels that this trend is not sustainable and is projecting an increase in disability incidence rates over the next 10 years to an ultimate rate of 5.4 new awards per thousand eligible workers. Recent industry studies of group disability insurance experience do not include incidence rates, so it is unclear whether this trend is also affecting the group insurance carriers to the same extent. If the incidence rate trends are different between SSDI and private group disability insurance programs, it could result in inaccurate reserving and pricing assumptions for Social Security offsets.

The graph in Figure 1 is taken from a presentation made by Steve Goss at the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s first Spring Policy Forum on June 22, 2018. It illustrates the continuing lower trends in disability incidence rates and the recognition of the potential for another increase following the next recession.

Figure 1: Disability incidence rate falls to historic low

SSDI disabled worker incidence rate rose sharply in the recession and has declined since the peak in 2010 to extraordinarily low levels for 2016 and 2017

The actuarial assumption report also mentions that a small portion of the decline in incidence rates is due to the backlog in the approval process. The SSA is assuming that the backlog will be eliminated by 2022. If this is true, it could also have implications for group insurers because Social Security disability payments represent offsets to their benefits. They should note that the lag for approvals of benefits is expected to shorten over the next four years and reserve assumptions should be monitored closely.

Finally, while recovery from Social Security disability has historically been very low, the most recent years are showing an increase in recovery rates. The report attributes this to an ongoing effort to reduce the backlog of continuing disability reviews. It is expected to decrease back to historical levels as they work through the backlog. The projected ultimate recovery rate is 10.3 per thousand beneficiaries. This compares to about 169 per thousand beneficiaries for private long-term disability policies, which cover many more temporary and partial disabilities.

Death rates are being projected at about 450% of the general population mortality. The Office of the Chief Actuary of the SSA is projecting population mortality to continue to decrease over time, resulting in a slightly decreasing curve for total terminations.

It is important that actuaries working with group disability insurance pay attention to changes in the SSDI program. Many changes could affect their results and may require careful planning.