Reserving estimates for claims with lifetime awards have been a complex task, and for years the assumption has been that the life expectancy of cliamants will continue to increase, thus requiring higher reserves and ultimately higher claim costs. Similarly, the price for annuities, and Medicare Set Aside trusts have been based upon an assumed life expectancy.

In most of the years since World War II, life expectancy in the U.S. has inched up, thanks to medical advances, public health campaigns and better nutrition and education.

But, according to a study just released by the Centers for Disease Control, last year it slipped, an exceedingly rare event in a year that did not include a major disease outbreak. Other one-year declines occurred in 1993, when the nation was in the throes of the AIDS epidemic, and 1980, the result of an especially nasty flu season. In 2015, rates for 8 of the 10 leading causes of death rose. Even more troubling to health experts: the U.S. seems to be settling into a trend of no improvement at all.

Gender matters: For males, life expectancy fell to 76.3 years from 76.5 years. For women, life expectancy decreased to 81.2, about 0.1 year from 2014.

The culprits for our declining years were increases in mortality from heart disease, chronic lower respiratory diseases, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and suicide. Not surprisingly, that group plus cancer and Alzehimer’s disease make up the top 10 causes of U.S. deaths.

Heart disease and cancer are the runaway top killers. The death rate from heart disease increased almost 1%. The death rate from cancer actually fell 2.7%.

Heart disease rates are probably a function of the U.S. obesity epidemic,  say the obesity epidemic, Donald Lloyd-Jones, head of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal. Obesity is blamed for increases in rates of hypertension, diabetes and other heart-related problems.

“We’re reaping what we’ve sown,” Lloyd-Jone said. “It’s a clear causal chain.”

But some researchers are also pointing to upticks in suicides and drug use – particularly among poorer white Americans – as potentially contributing factors. “Clearly, that could be related to the economic circumstances that many Americans have experienced in the last eight years, or so, since the recession,” University of Pennsylvania sociologist Irma Elo told NPR.

The United States ranks below dozens of other high-income countries in life expectancy, according to the World Bank. It is highest in Japan, at nearly 84 years.

It is yet too early to determine if this is a trend, or an anomaly. In either case, claims administrators continue to be caught in the middle in terms of justifying reserve estimates for lifetime awards.