Special Mortality Table

One used to determine the life expectancy of annuitants. Annuity buyers are not representative of the population as a whole, or of life insurance buyers. Because annuities pay an income for life, only those in good health, and who expect to live a long time, will spend their money for an annuity contract. Recognizing this, life insurers, who sell annuity contracts, use special mortality tables, which chiefly consider age and sex, to predict their deaths. For example, if a 50-year-old applicant purchases an IMMEDIATE ANNUITY for life with $100,000, the income would be less than that for a 70-year-old. Likewise, because women have longer life expectancies, their monthly income payments would be lower than men of the same age.