premium is or . generally refers to net premiums per annum, to special premiums, as a unique premium. Force of mortality Among actuaries, force of mortality refers to what economists and other social scientists call the hazard rate and is construed as an instantaneous rate of mortality at a certain age measured on an annualized basis. In a life table, we consider the probability of a person dying between age (x) and age x + 1; this probability is called qx. In the continuous case, we could also consider the conditional probability that a person who has attained age (x) will die between age (x) and age (x + Δx) as: where FX(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the continuous age-at-death random variable, X. As Δx tends to zero, so does this probability in the continuous case. The approximate force of mortality is this probability divided by Δx. If we let Δx tend to zero, we get the function for force of mortality, denoted as μ(x): See also Actuarial present value Actuarial science Annual percentage rate Mathematics of finance External links 1949 description in the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries International Actuarial Notation suite Applied mathematics Mathematical notation Actuarial science Demography