Description: This report summarizes the results of a research project undertaken by the Society of Actuaries to study the possible effects of the International Accounting Standards Board’s IASB Discussion Paper describing its Preliminary Views on Insurance Contracts on nine representative U.S. life, health and annuity products.

Description: This is a discussion of the title paper by Raymond F. Houseman, which provides some practical aspects of various funding methods. The paper is critiqued, and some alternative methods are discussed.

Description: This is a discussion of the paper, 'Life Agents' Retirement Plans under New York State Expense Limitations' by Peter M. Tompa. This discussion amplifies the paper with regards to comparison of funding retirement with single premium deferred annuities as opposed to the money purchase method and critiques the table used for valuation of benefits.

Description: This paper presents a disability continuance table based on industry individual policy experience to render it suitable as a standard for expected claims and for adjusted earnings purposes. Also includes discussion of the paper by John B. Cummings, Timothy A. Hinchliff, John H.Miller, R.Terry Nelson, John S.Thompson Jr., Eduard H.Minor

Description: Various methods of accounting for a block of in-force business acquired at the time of purchase have been proposed and used. This paper describes nine such methods, analyzing each by the use of a very simple model office. Followed by submitted discussions of the article

Description: An extension of a paper published in the 1952 Transactions by the same author, describing and classifying various funding methods for defined benefit pension plans. Followed by discussion papers submitted by several authors.

Description: This paper presents multiple book reviews: Reports from Staff of U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Reports in Connection with Social Security Legislation 1975-77, 'Statement on Cost Comparisons of Individual Life Insurance Policies', by Canadian Institute of Actuaries, 'Investment Activities of Life Insurance Companies' from Huebner Foundation Lectures, 'The Life Insurance Industry's Marketing Dilemma' by Johns, 'The Future of Social Security' by Munnell, 'Social Security - Today and Tomorrow' by Ball, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Batten, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Batten, 'The Crisis in Social Security - Problems and Prospects' by Boskin, 'A History of Interest Rates' by Homer, 'Indexation of Pensions and Other Benefits' by Robert Myers, 'Life Insurance Accounting' by Strain, '1978 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund...' by US Congress. Brief summaries of additional readings are also included.

Description: Discusses how a small health insurance company may be able to create and successfully maintain its wealth through careful actuarial model considerations used in calculating reserves. A traditional and a conservative approach to calculating the reserves are compared. The conservative approach was found particularly useful when estimating reserves for an individual health insurance company with numerous product lines each relatively small in volume.

Description: This report is to estimate the burden of chronic disability on the U.S. elderly population, using unisex and sex-specific measures of long-term care service use, intensity and costs. It discusses disability prevalence, incidence, duration, and long-term care intensity and cost.

Description: The CSTEP 'Cluster Sampling for Tail Estimation of Probability' system is a desktop-based application to assist actuaries in efficient stochastic modeling through the implementation of Representative Scenario approaches. Its goal is to provide actuaries with an open-source HPC 'High Performance Computation' research platform to select a sample set of representative 'pivot' risk scenarios through user-specified or user-researched distance definitions.