Description: On October 30, 2006, the UK government's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change made startling claims about the present value today of climate change effects predicted to emerge primarily 150 years or more in the future. The ensuing debate included challenges to and defenses of the particular methodology used and parameter values selected to perform the discounting of future values. Noticing an overlooked faux pas in the Stern Review, this presentation uncovers the likely motivation for choosing the most mystifying of the parameters values, and provides a lesson on the underpinnings of the basic tool of actuarial science.

Description: This report summarizes a study that estimates the total economic burden of the opioid crisis in the United States from 2015 through 2018 and projects future costs of the opioid epidemic for 2019.

Description: Discusses the market, demographic, and macroeconomic factors that affect actuaries' choices for the assumptions they use in the pricing and valuation of many insurance products.

Description: This research report on the effect of deflation or high inflation has six sections: 1. The first section provides background on inflation, describes some problems in measuring inflation, and explains some of its effects on an economy. 2. The second section reviews historical inflation rates. 3. The third section examines the effect of inflation or deflation on the property-liability and life insurance industries. 4. The fourth section proposes risk mitigation strategies for insurers to cope with either deflation or high inflation rates. 5. The fifth section describes a publicly available model that can be used to develop inflation/deflation projections under a regime switching format that can readily be adjusted to reflect current financial uncertainty. 6. The sixth section provides conclusions.

Description: This is an Excel 2003 spreadsheet that accompanies the research report entitled 'The Effect of Deflation or High Inflation on the Insurance Industry.' It models scholastically the effects of inflation and deflation.

Description: Accurate determination of the appropriate time to retire and replace a physical asset is important for large ensembles of such assets when taken as a whole, and concerns the fate of tens of trillions of dollars in assets, such as airplane engines, vehicles, or any other kind of physical asset susceptible to obsolescence. A decision model to accomplish this is derived using the concept of actuarial present value applied to an economic theory of cost minimization. Since this is a theory coupling investor wealth creation with the long-term optimization of the use of scarce resources, it can also be offered as an economic model relevant to sustainability.

Description: Accurate determination of the appropriate time to retire and replace a physical asset is important for large ensembles of such assets when taken as a whole, and concerns the fate of tens of trillions of dollars in assets, such as airplane engines, vehicles, or any other kind of physical asset susceptible to obsolescence. A decision model to accomplish this is derived using the concept of actuarial present value applied to an economic theory of cost minimization. Since this is a theory coupling investor wealth creation with the long-term optimization of the use of scarce resources, it can also be offered as an economic model relevant to sustainability.

Description: This session series is sponsored by Hannover Re Session 1 - COVID-19: Past, Present and Future and Its Impact on Health Products COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the health industry, forcing insurance companies and other risk-sharing entities to re-assess how to write and manage its business going forward. This first of two sessions in the special COVID-19 series will review the impact the pandemic has had on the development, pricing and risk management of health products. The speakers will review COVID-19 mortality and morbidity trends, share possible outlooks for the future of the virus, and analyze how COVID-19 has impacted the pricing strategies and risk management of health business across various markets (e.g., the ACA marketplace, Group Commercial and Medicare). By attending this session, you will be able to explain the latest COVID-19 trends in the US and globally and the resulting impact on mortality and morbidity experience. Attendees will develop a clearer understanding of how the pandemic has impacted the pricing and risk management of health products.

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.

Description: This paper represents a brief progress report on research, being sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries, in the area of modeling of economic series. In particular, research is being undertaken to provide a foundation for the actuarial community’s modeling of a variety of economic variables, including interest rates, equity returns, inflation, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels. The specific objectives of this research are to provide a summary of the literature in the area of economic scenario modeling, identify data sources and methodologies in this area useful to the actuarial profession, and produce working software for economic modeling, including appropriate documentation, to be made available to the general actuarial community in order to allow actuaries to use and build upon this research. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.