Page 34 - The Insurance Times November 2025

Risk Stratification

Epigenetic Clocks as

Predictors of Mortality:

A New Tool for Life

Insurance Risk Adwitiya Chaudhuri

Assistant Professor
Stratification Pingla Thana Mahavidyalaya
Department of Zoology,
West Bengal

Numerous cohort studies have validated the utility of epigenetic clocks in predicting all-cause
mortality. For instance, accelerated epigenetic aging, where biological age exceeds chronological
age, has been consistently associated with increased mortality risk (Marioni et al., 2015).

1. Introduction raises significant ethical, legal, and technical challenges that
must be carefully addressed.
The accurate prediction of individual mortality risk is a
longstanding challenge across medicine, public health, and
actuarial science. Traditional actuarial models primarily rely 2. Understanding Epigenetic Clocks
on demographic data, lifestyle information, and medical 2.1 What is Epigenetics?
history to estimate life expectancy. While useful, these Epigenetics refers to heritable yet reversible changes in gene
models often fail to capture biological variation between expression that occur without altering the underlying DNA
chronological age and biological age, limiting their precision. sequence. The most studied epigenetic mechanism is DNA
Advances in molecular biology, particularly in the field of methylation, involving the addition of methyl groups to
epigenetics, have revealed that DNA methylation patterns cytosine residues at CpG dinucleotides. These modifications
can serve as robust biomarkers of aging. These insights have regulate gene expression, developmental processes, and
led to the development of epigenetic clocks as predictive responses to environmental exposures. Importantly, DNA
tools that quantify biological age and offer strong methylation patterns change predictably with age, making
correlations with health outcomes and mortality risk. them suitable biomarkers for estimating biological age.

This emerging technology holds particular relevance for the 2.2 Development of Epigenetic Clocks
life insurance industry, where risk stratification is essential The first major advancement came with Horvath's multi-
for underwriting policies and setting premiums. By tissue clock (2013), which demonstrated that DNA
integrating epigenetic clocks into actuarial frameworks, methylation profiles could estimate chronological age with
insurers may be able to refine risk assessment, improve remarkable accuracy across diverse tissues. Following this,
accuracy, and enhance long-term financial stability. Hannum et al. (2013) developed a blood-specific clock,
However, the incorporation of such molecular data also strengthening associations with health outcomes. More

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