Description: Presented at May 1985 Spring Meeting. This session discussed: How investment policy should be developed, Role of the actuary and the investment officer, Role of the pricing actuary and the valuation actuary, Liquidity considerations, Tax considerations, Capital loss constraints, Process for changing strategy as the economy and company circumstances change.

Description: Description of the mathematics involved when looking at low probability events within a company from the perspective of the C-Suite. The accumulation of small probability events leads to a much higher probability of at least one of them happening in a given period.

Description: Full version of Product Development News, August 2001, Issue No. 51.

Description: Long-term guarantees place unanticipated burdens on companies because of the degree to which the environment can change. These risks are compounded when combined with estimation of policyholder behavior, especially when solid experience data is not available. When risks are properly reflected, long-term guarantees do not always provide value to the customer in excess of the manufacturing cost. The product development actuary is challenged to compare customer value to company cost and use that measurement to identify novel ways to design products to better serve customers.

Description: In actuarial work, we are frequently confronted with problems with more than one apparently reasonable answer. This article deals with one of these, where the Federal DAC cost can be applied in an apparently reasonable, but incorrect, manner.

Description: Opportunities frequently come in the guise of change within a company or the industry and the person who is willing and able to adapt to the changing environment can benefit from these opportunities. Whether the change is voluntary or involuntary, there will always be challenges faced and benefits reaped; and the more you prepare yourself for the possibility of change the quicker you’ll be able to adapt.

Description: This paper outlines the limitations inherent in current actuarial pricing techniques and describes a macro pricing process for product development that can produce optimal decisions in competitive environments. A discussion of the paper follows. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1991, Vol. 43.