Description: Commentary on practical observations resulting from constructing and running Economic Capital models. Possible standardization of assumptions and result interpretation are morphing even though use of E.C. models has now been around for years.

Description: Commentary on practical observations resulting from constructing and running Economic Capital models. Possible standardization of assumptions and result interpretation are morphing even though use of E.C. models has now been around for years.

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, indexed variable annuities, etc. 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 approach 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 with regard to the difficulty of risk management.

Description: Python has become the fastest-growing major programming language in the world. It has surged in popularity over the last decade, following the development of its industry-leading capabilities in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and it is now one of the most globally popular and widely used languages. In this article, I discuss some of the reasons for its popularity and explain why many actuaries and insurers have started using Python.

Description: The author describes how his company was able to benefit from an application of risk theory.

Description: Feature article describing a new method of computing professional athletes’ salaries using actuarial skills/ the economic value concept. From The Actuary Magazine, Dec 2009

Description: Cautions against putting too much faith in financial models - such as the IASB's proposal to accrue future expected profits on the day a policy is issued.

Description: In this article the author presents a general solution to the problem of finding the effective annual interest rate commonly arising in finance for an installment loan.

Description: This article discusses value at risk, VaR, and VaR modeling of the bank's portfolios that would recognize diversity and hedging. This article also covers the differences between classical VaR and the longer horizons required by the insurance industry and the feasibility of extending VaR to the insurance industry.