Description: This paper is from Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1955 Volume 7, Number 17. The author notes that in mortality studies the ‘natural’ unit for exposures and deaths is number of lives, but often more insight is gained by use of other weights, such as face amount. In this paper, the author develops a method which, ‘by a combination of exposed to risk formulas, provides a comparatively simple procedure to permit consideration of weights which vary during the observation period.’

Description: Summary of the July, 2013 newsletter with an executive overview of each article.

Description: In this article about professional development, the new competency network is descibed and and emerging job opportunities in health care analytics are discussed.

Description: This predictive modeling for life insurers paper, “Predictive Model Learning of Stochastic Simulations” by John Hegstrom is one of a collection of essays that examine how existing or new methods or models can be applied to the life insurance industry.

Description: The article describes what a Delphi study entails; describes past Delphi studies conducted by the SOA; and summarizes "Land This Plane" - A Delphi Study about Long-Term Care in the United States, which was published by the SOA in April 2014.

Description: With a reference to Malthus, this paper notes that the main constraint on human population in the foreseeable future is cultivable land for food agriculture. The author proposes a solution involving the use of land that is currently desert, using desalination and solar power a plan which he demonstrates can be sustainable and profitable.

Description: This article explores trends and methodologies in the Secondary Insurance Market as well as associated opportunities and pitfalls for actuaries.

Description: The authors set forth a generalized model describing the application of current law [1976 NAIC model Standard Valuation Law and Standard Nonforfeiture Law] to products of the universal life type. Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983 Volume 35.

Description: CHCS is a nonprofit policy center focused on improving American health outcomes, particularly for low-income people, including payment & delivery system reform.

Description: This actually is a copy of an appendix of a research paper sponsored by the SOA Committee on Finance Research. You can read the entire research paper: “Lapse Modeling for the Post-Level Period—a Practical Application of Predictive Modeling” at the SOA site https://www.soa.org/Research/Research-Projects/Finance-Investment/lapse-2015-modeling-post-level/#sthash.W9lERSls.dpbs, but you can read this valuable appendix copied here in this issue to see how to build a PM step-by-step using your data and the R programming language. We thank Richard Xu, Dihui Lai, Minyu Cao, Scott Rushing, and Tim Rozar for their excellent paper and the Society of Actuaries, for the permission to reprint this portion of the paper.