"Cause Unknown": The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022

by Ed Dowd

In the first week of January 2022 OneAmerica CEO Scott Davison made comments to a Commerce meeting that were soon picked up by some media outlets: “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica. The data is consistent across every player in that business.” Davison said the increase in deaths represented “huge, huge numbers,” and that it wasn’t elderly people who were dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who were employees of companies with group life insurance plans through OneAmerica. “And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said. “Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.” He added that most of the claims for deaths being filed were not classified as COVID-19 deaths. At the same time, the company was seeing an “uptick” in disability claims, at first short-term disability, and then a new increase in long-term disability claims.