The Canadian Institute of Actuaries (“CIA”) released the long-awaited report on the 2024 Canadian Pensioner Mortality Research Project on March 11, 2026, which includes new mortality tables reflecting the latest experience of Canadian pensioners and their spouses. This research and accompanying mortality tables set the stage for potential adoption for use in actuarial valuations and commuted value standards for pension plans in Canada.

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2024 Canadian Pensioner Mortality Research Project_EN

Background

Canadian pension plans today typically use a variation of the CPM2014 tables as the base mortality assumption. These tables were based on research conducted in 2014 and mortality experience from 1999 to 2008. At the time, it was the first research study that looked at mortality specifically for Canadian pensioners.

Given that 10 years have passed since the 2014 study, the CIA has retained Ad Res Advanced Reinsurance Services to conduct an updated study: the 2024 Canadian Pensioner Mortality Research Project (“CPM2024 Research”). The CPM2024 Research was released in March 2026 and includes 20 different mortality tables that vary by:

• Male vs. Female;
• Retirees vs. Surviving Spouses;
• Heavy vs. Light vs. Combined[1]; and
• Pension Amounts Weighted vs. Lives Weighted

CPM2024 Research Highlights

Data

The CPM2024 mortality tables were derived from the experience of 33 plans, covering 1.6 million individual records, 11.4 million life-years of exposure and over 330,000 recorded deaths. This represents approximately three times more data volume than the prior study conducted in 2014.

The study period of the research covered 11 years from 2011 to 2021.

COVID-19 Impact

As the study period included years impacted by COVID-19, modelling was done to identify periods of mortality “spikes”. While excess and deficit mortality[2] are to be expected, the analysis identified the first wave of COVID-19 deaths in April/May 2020 to be an outlier. Accordingly, this isolated event was controlled by excluding it from the development of the final tables made up of mortality rates effective as of the beginning of 2024.

Heavy vs. Light Mortality

The prior 2014 study resulted in public and private sector versions of the CPM2014 mortality tables. The CPM2024 Research recognizes that this categorization may not fully capture differentiation in expected mortality. For example, a plan comprised of white-collar management members in the private sector could have lower mortality than a plan in the public sector, which contradicts the conclusion from the 2014 study, where public sector plans generally have lower mortality than private sector plans.

Instead, the CPM2024 Research separated plans into sub-plans based on those with similar characteristics (blue vs. white-collar, union vs. non-union, managerial vs. non-managerial, etc.). The sub-plans were then grouped[3] into Heavy vs. Light based on where distinct mortality experience was observed. This resulted in Heavy, Light and Combined versions of the CPM2024 mortality tables.

The CPM2024 Research provides very limited guidance on how plans should select between Heavy vs. Light versions of the mortality tables and ultimately leaves the decision to the Plan Actuary. Plans may compare their workforce characteristics against those of the sub-plans used to develop the two versions of tables as a benchmark:

• Heavy: based on the experience of groups where occupation is primarily in heavy manual labour, unionized and/or blue-collar jobs.
• Light: based on the experience of groups where occupation is primarily in white-collar positions of the financial services and education sectors.

Surviving Spouse Mortality

One key innovation in the CPM2024 Research is the introduction of separate mortality tables between retirees and surviving spouses. The intent is to reflect the generally higher mortality observed for surviving spouses upon the death of the retiree.

Studies have shown that this phenomenon (referred to in the CPM2024 Research as the “grieving widow effect”) results in elevated mortality as widows/widowers cope with emotional/physical stress and deal with lifestyle changes as they grieve the loss of a loved one. The mortality experience observed in the CPM2024 Research shows this impact is pronounced enough to warrant a separate set of mortality tables. This differentiation in mortality between retirees and surviving spouses is commonly reflected in pricing of group annuity buy-ins/buy-outs by insurers.

Next Steps

The industry will await guidance from both the Committee on Pension Plan Financial Reporting and the Actuarial Standards Board on how the new CPM2024 mortality tables will be adopted for actuarial valuations and commuted value standards. Most likely, any guidance will also take into consideration the CanMI-2024 mortality improvement scale that was released with the CIA Mortality Improvements Research published in April 2024 (which was also conducted by Ad Res Advanced Reinsurance Services). As of now, the use of CPM2014 mortality tables along with either the CPM-B, MI-2017 and CanMI-2024 mortality improvement scales continues to be appropriate for actuarial valuation purposes.

In the interim, plan sponsors may consider the following items:

1. Conduct an impact analysis of adopting the new CPM2024 mortality tables as part of their December 31, 2025 actuarial valuation process. The impact on liabilities and normal cost will vary depending on several factors, including the plan demographics, current base mortality assumptions and which version of the new CPM2024 tables are being adopted.

This analysis should also assess the impact of adopting the new CanMI-2024 mortality improvement scale to have a complete view of changes to liabilities and normal cost from potential mortality assumption changes (i.e., both base mortality and future improvements). Preliminary results indicate that the increase in life expectancy and pension plan liabilities is primarily driven by the new CanMI-2024 mortality improvement scale (all else being equal).

2. If plans are currently using a custom multiplier on the CPM2014 tables (e.g., derived from a customized or industry-specific mortality study), they should be mindful that the same multiplier may not translate to the new CPM2024 tables. A revised mortality study would be required to recalibrate plan/industry-specific experience under the new base mortality tables.

Contact your PBI consultants today to see how we can help your plan navigate these upcoming changes to mortality assumptions.

[1] Male surviving spouses only have a “Combined” version of a table due to the limited mortality experience for this cohort.

[2] Excess (deficit) mortality refers to higher (lower) observed mortality relative to expected.

[3] The study also separated sub-plans into a third Intermediate group. The observed mortality of this group was not materially different than that of the combined experience of all plans. Therefore, an Intermediate version of the CPM2024 mortality table was not necessary.