Forecasting Product Liability Claims

This volume presents a rigorous account of quantitative forecasting efforts that led to the successful resolution of the Johns-Manville asbestos litigation. This case, taking 12 years to reach settlement, may generate over one million claims at a total nominal value of tens of billions of dollars. The forecasting task, to project the number, timing, and nature of claims for asbestos-related injuries from an unknown number of exposed persons, is a general problem. The models in this volume can be adapted to forecast industry-wide asbestos liability, as well as liability for other products and other insurable or compensable events. The volume illustrates the iterative nature of model building and the uncertainty due to incomplete knowledge of the processes of injury and litigation.

The volume is written for actuaries, biostatisticians, demographers, epidemiologists, statisticians and analysts of problems in environmental health, finance, industrial risk, investment, occupational health, and product liability. Although statistics, calculus, and matrix algebra are used, the logic behind the quantitative analysis is explained so that readers without specialized quantitative skills can understand why and how specific methods are used. This volume will be an indispensable reference for lawyers, judges, and all whose work involves these topics.

The Honorable Jack B. Weinstein, senior U.S. District Court judge in the Eastern District of New York, commissioned Professor Margaret Berger and the authors of this book as neutral experts in the Manville case. He and Professor Berger are widely known for promoting the use of science in law. His foreword sets the context for this book.

Eric Stallard, A.S.A., M.A.A.A., F.C.A., is Research Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University. He is a Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries. He chairs the American Academy of Actuaries' State and Federal Long Term Care Task Forces and is an elected member of the Society of Actuaries' Long Term Care Insurance Section Council. His research interests include modeling and forecasting for medical demography and health/long-term care actuarial practice. He won the 1996 National Institute on Aging's James A. Shannon Director's Award.

Kenneth G. Manton, Ph.D., is Research Professor and Scientific Director of the Center for Demographic Studies, Medical Research Professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine, and Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, at Duke University. His research interests include human aging, mortality, and chronic disease. He won the 1990 Mindel C. Sheps Award in Mathematical Demography of the Population Association of America, the 1991 Allied-Signal Inc. Achievement Award in Aging administered by the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging, and the 2000 M. Irené Ferrer Award of the Partnership for Women's Health at Columbia University.

Joel E. Cohen, Ph.D., Dr. P.H., heads the Laboratory of Populations, at Rockefeller and Columbia Universities. His awards include: MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, Tyler World Prize for Environmental Achievement, Mercer Award of the Ecological Society of America, Sheps Award of the Population Association of America, Nordberg Prize of the Population Council, Soper Prize of the Pan American Health Organization, and Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award of the Sixth International Congress of Ecology. He serves on the national governing boards of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Nature Conservancy.