  A recent study in the 2017 Living to 100 Monograph published by the Society
of Actuaries suggests, in contrast to previous research, that the risk of death
after 110 increases with age. By fitting a Gompertz model to estimated central
death rates for the oldest old, the authors challenge existing theory and
empirical research indicating a deceleration of mortality at older ages and the
emergence of a plateau. We argue that their results are inconclusive for three
reasons: (1) the data selection was arbitrary; (2) the statistical analysis was
inappropriate; and (3) the presentation of the results is misleading and
inadequate. We therefore claim that the hypothesis that the human force of
mortality increases after age 110 has not been proved.
