Description: Discussion of solvency problems and the actuary's role in addressing them in the life insurance industry.

Description: Discusses the results of an inter-company study of the effect of cigarette smoking on Ordinary Insurance mortality. The study also includes an underwriting guide.

Description: In physics and engineering education, Fermi problems require solutions based on good approximate calculations with little or no actual data, involving making justified guesses and deducing bounds without using sophisticated tools. The idea of Fermi problems are of particular relevance to today's actuaries, as pricing, reserving, and financial reporting involve more and more complex stochastic components. The paper discusses some approximate solutions developed in academia in the spirit of Fermi problems.

Description: Feature article describing how the Society of Actuaries (SOA) partnered with the Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU) and the Canadian Institute of Underwriters to conduct research focused on new medical tests and markers that may have significance and relevance to the life insurance markets to get a sense of where underwriting practices are going in the future.

Description: This article highlights the interaction between pricing and corporate. There is a move toward principle-based reserving standards in the United States.

Description: Feature article describing a simple and ready solution that allows a hedging program to operate effectively without risk of mismatch due to mortality fluctuations.

Description: Universal Life/Indexed Universal Life trends based on the 6th annual Milliman survey of leading UL carriers. Reveals the current dynamics of the UL/IUL market and provides carriers with competitive benchmarking to see how they stand relative to their peers.

Description: This article discusses the growing popularity of variable products and compares the product design and pricing of VUL and UL products.

Description: The article summarizes results of a Milliman survey per the title. These products comprise about 40% of the total individual life market, and the survey covers a range of topics on these plans, which should be of interest to a large portion of the life industry.

Description: Describes a process for identifying relevant industry experience to credibility-weight with relevant company experience to set modeling assumptions and margins.