Insurers are always looking for ways to evaluate and predict the lifestyle risks of potential or current clients. Motor vehicle records, or MVRs, could become the next popular predictive data source for calculating an individual's all-cause mortality. A study by LexisNexis and RGA Reinsurance Co. analyzed more than 7.4 million MVRs and found that persons with serious and frequent violations had much higher all-cause mortality than those with clean records or a few minor infractions.

LexisNexis and RGA Reinsurance Co. cross-referenced the MVRs with the Social Security Death Master File and used the information to run an actuarial mortality study. This allowed the companies to calculate relative mortality ratios for specific customer segments. Three major groups were distinguished: clean records, minor violators, and major violators (pre-defined as alcohol or substance related infractions, excess speeding and reckless driving in order to avoid bias).

The results included the following observations:

• Trends are consistent among age groups but are more pronounced for women
• The more violations an individual has on his or her MVR, regardless of severity, the higher the relative mortality ratio
• Having a major violation raised one's all-cause mortality by 71 percent; having six or more violations resulted in 79 percent higher mortality ratios
• Mortality of individuals with four or more MVR violations is more than double that of individuals without major violations.

Motor vehicle records could surpass current popular methods for risk prediction—social networking, online shopping and subscription data—because of reliability, affordability and ease of use. By examining an applicant's MVR, life insurers can make more accurate pricing decisions, improve applicant retention and minimize underwriter reporting.