Description: The modern valuation manual steps up the need for actuaries to know and apply statistics. If your recall of common actuarial statistical techniques is more than one standard deviation below the mean, this session will provide the lift you need.

Description: Through much of the Baby Boomer generation's working lifetime, retirement planning focused on asset accumulation. Strategies like Dollar-Cost Averaging and Asset Diversification became well understood by nearly everyone in the retirement industry. As those assets move into the payout phase (post retirement), the appropriateness of those strategies becomes less clear. Presenters will aim to exhibit and explain how and why adding a Single Premium Immediate Annuity (SPIA) or Deferred Income Annuity (DIA) to a retirement portfolio can help to minimize a retiree's chance of outliving his or her income, and why sellers of annuities should focus more heavily on these product offerings. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to - Identify the reasons why effective asset accumulation strategies may be ineffective in the decumulation phase of retirement - Evaluate the benefit of using at least a portion of accumulated retirement assets to purchase a fixed income stream that the annuitant is guaranteed not to outlive - Explain the benefits of a SPIA/DIA focus to other industry practitioners

Description: Full version of Product Matters! July 2003, Issue No. 56.

Description: Full version of Product Matters, January 2002, Issue No. 52.

Description: Presenter, an actuary with an advanced degree in statistics, provides some simple tools and guidelines – without complex formulas – about the distribution of a conditional tail expectation, how to draw correct inferences from the results of stochastic testing, and the uses and pitfalls of linear regression analyses. Session 24TS of the 2005 Valuation Actuary Symposium.

Description: In session 40PD of the 2004 Valuation Actuary Symposium, panelists discuss theories and assumptions underlying scenario generators, evaluating appropriateness of generated scenarios, choosing suitable economic scenario generators and use of representative scenarios.

Description: Full version of The Financial Reporter, Issue No. 53, June 2003.

Description: 2004 SOA Annual Meeting and Exhibit, New York. This discussion looked at individual life insurance and annuity products and the risks these guarantees carry, such as: 1. Extended maturity benefits. 2. Secondary guarantees. 3. Guaranteed insurability. 4. Guaranteed minimum living and death benefits in VA.

Description: This article delves into a new line of statistical thinking of the author, that may be useful for product development actuaries. The key concept is how product design can produce products that diversify quickly, meaning that the company can be confident of a profitable product line, based on fewer sales than might be true for other designs.

Description: This presentation is a Teaching Session, number 46TS, from the 2002 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held September 19-20 in Lake Buena Vista, FL. In this session, the instructor discusses simple tools and guidelines to ensure that correct inferences are drawn. The material is presented without using complex mathematical formulas. Topics include application of a normal distribution—when it is appropriate and when it is not, drawing inferences about and creating confidence intervals around tail percentile, and Monte Carlo Simulations for Regulation XXX.