INTRODUCTION The Editor of the Journal of Insurance Medicine has chosen to reprint this methodology article 1 and has asked me to write a commentary. The reprinted article speaks for itself, and I will not comment on the methodology that is its main purpose. Instead, I will focus on some other aspects of life table methodology that relate to the importance of time (duration of follow-up [FU]) in the use of this methodology. I will also stress the high quality of the article concerning study of

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... atients after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) as a source for a mortality abstract. 2,3 I hope that review of these aspects will help the medical director or underwriter to improve his or her ability to apply results of new FU mortality studies to the underwriting skills used in risk selection.