Description: The April/May 2013 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: The financial reporting of insurance is necessarily a complicated process because of numerous and stringent regulatory requirements, the inherent difficulty in estimating both the probability and cost of long-term contingent events, product diversity, and new products, such as equity-linked annuities. This literature guide provides the user with a summary of representative sources of current general information for continuing education purposes.

Description: The December 2013/January 2014 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: Discussion of the standards set by ASOP 23 on data quality within a health insurance context.

Description: This literature guide provides a basic grounding in policyholder dividends and other nonguaranteed elements in individual life insurance and annuities in Canada and the U.S. Participating insurance is most often offered by mutuals in the U.S. and by both mutual and stock companies in Canada.

Description: Panelists discuss the latest trends in long-term-care product design and pricing issues. Topics include ASOP 18, combination disability products, morbidity & lapse assumptions, state regulations and underwriting. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 2.

Description: This session is about health insurance cash-flow testing through liability and asset modeling for individual disability income insurance and health valuations. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 19, No. 1B.

Description: In September 2005, the AICPA issued SOP 05-1, Accounting by Insurance Enterprises for Deferred Acquisition Costs in Connection with Modifications or Exchanges of Insurance Contracts. The SOP provides accounting guidance for DAC on internal replacements of insurance and investment contracts other than those specifically mentioned in FAS 97. Article discusses implementation issues.

Description: By definition, actuaries are preeminent in making actuarial analyses. Nevertheless, in some areas, such analyses can be adequately performed by persons from other professions, such as economists and statisticians. This article describes the misuse of life expectancy data by the Heritage Foundation when they 'calculated' that low-income, single African-American males born after 1959 face a negative rate of return from Social Security. Unfortunately, this misinformation was widely disseminated through the news media and Web sites.

Description: This 1991 panel discussion considers several valuation issues from the point of view of an actuary of an insurance Company, a Blue Cross/Blue Shield Plan, and a Health Maintenance Organization [HMO]. The issues discussed include basic methodology, source of data/coding conventions, extended benefit provision, loss adjustment expense, provider arrangements, employer refund arrangements and cash flow testing. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 17, No. 3B.