At CRL, we continue to work diligently to better assist you, your company and your clients. This issue of Reference Point features a sample of our ongoing endeavors to provide research, service, and technology options for the life insurance industry by introducing Smart Score^TM.

Risk scores are generated for each lab test included, as well as for build and for blood pressure. The more negative the score, the more risk is reduced and the more positive the score, the more risk is increased relative to others of same age and gender. All test scores are then combined together with a small age-gender adjustment to standardize them creating an overall Smart Score^TM.

A combined Smart Score^TM with a negative value is associated with much better than average longevity; a value of 50 to 100 has a more average risk; and a value of 150 or more suggests substantially increased risk with risk moving upward in a near-linear manner from the lowest to highest Smart Scores^TM.

Because the testing results were evaluated using age- and gender-specific ranges based on actual mortality of life insurance applicants, risk assessment by Smart Score^TM, while likely more accurate, may vary from what you have seen in the past. The component scores can help the applicant and their health professional focus on ways to reduce risk where possible.

Smart Score^TM was developed by looking at the long-term mortality in over 10 million insurance applicants from age 20 to over age 80 and comparing mortality to lab results. This was done for each individual test and for all tests in combination both with each other and with build and blood pressure results. Each age-gender combination was analyzed separately to ascertain which tests and which test values were predictive of increased or decreased mortality risk. The resulting score is more accurate and fairer than the traditional approach, which mainly utilizes universal "normal ranges". These normal ranges are usually based on the distribution of all adult results, not whether the result is actually associated with either decreased or increased mortality risk as compared to others of same age and gender.  

Much of the underlying research on which Smart Score^TM is based has been or is being published in medical journals or industry bulletins, many of which are accessible at www.crlcorp.com/insurance/science, the CRL website.

For more information regarding Smart Score^TM, contact your CRL sales representative.