Description: Stochastic modeling requirements are resulting in more 'run time' and less 'analysis time'. An expensive solution is leveraging cloud infrastructures and robust computing grids. The presenters will explore the use of cluster modeling and present case studies showcasing this automatable and robust technique, which could allow actuaries to recover the time lost to 'run time'. Developing automatable and clustered models requires robust governance practices to ensure credibility of results.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to help practitioners and regulators more accurately quantify the potential impact of market risk on insurance products with equity-linked guarantees. To this end, this paper examines time series model selection and assessment based on residuals, with a focus on regime switching models. Also it discusses the difficulties in defining residuals for such processes and propose several possible alternatives. We determine that a stochastic approach to defining the residuals is the only way to generate residuals that are normally distributed under the model hypothesis.

Description: Actuarial models and modeling processes continue to grow in complexity, accelerated by the changes in U.S. Statutory, U.S. GAAP and IFRS reporting requirements in the past few years. Modeling and valuation teams are expanding their toolkits beyond the traditional vendor-maintained actuarial software and the MS Office suite of tools. Companies have started to use a variety of tools to improve model dev and valuation processes, including: - Data management - Automation and workflow - Reporting and analytics

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: This paper suggests a new model for the distribution of deaths between two adjacent integral ages which addresses existing discontinuities. Application of the model is shown and compared with the existing three popular models. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 2.

Description: This is the abstract of the paper entitled 'On Simulating the Total Claims Distribution' by Bruce L. Jones. From ACTUARIAL RESEARCH CLEARING HOUSE, 1994 VOL. 1.

Description: In this paper we compute the conditional and unconditional probability of ruin for an individual who wishes to consume a fixed periodic amount from an initial endowment invested in a portfolio earning a stochastic rate of return. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.

Description: Consider a portfolio of insurance policies where the mean frquency of claims for each policy may vary. A reasonable assumption is that the number of claims for a policy is a Poisson random variable. In this paper the author shows how to test this hypothesis under certain conditions. He then presents some nonparametric tests for this and other hypotheses about the risk distribution function. Actuarial Research Clearing House 1992, VOL. 1.

Description: With many complex regulatory changes on the horizon as well as pressures to ensure model accuracy from auditors, regulatory requirements and new actuarial standards of practice, the importance of robust model validation is coming to the forefront of actuaries’ minds. What was previously a day-two task for many companies is becoming just as important as model development! In this session, you will hear from those that have been deeply involved in building model validation frameworks and tools in responses to regulatory changes GAAP Long Duration Targeted Improvements (“LDTI”) and Principles Based Reserves (“PBR”).

Description: Read the April 2020 issue of The Modeling Platform, published by the Modeling Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.