Description: Introduction and table of contents of essay collection.

Description: In the June 2014 issue of Product Matters, Doug Robbins of Pacific Life authored a fascinating article entitled “Velocity of Diversification.” Therein, he proposed a pricing measure that describes the “…speed at which confidence in profitability is attained”. How can stochastic modeling of mortality be applied to analyze the velocity of diversification, and how would that measure be affected by volatility in the underlying assumptions?

Description: Discussion of how to mature value-based contracts between health insurers and provider organizations to improve population health and financial sustainability. Centers around contract parameter consistency, revenue predictability and risk assessment. Intended audience are health plan and ACO actuaries and leaders. Authors are writing from the provider perspective in value-based contracts.

Description: The costly, time-consuming and complicated process of enterprise risk management (ERM) can be improved in many companies and made less tedious for managers by using reasonable data and templates obtained from peer group entities. The models used to calculate economic capital (EC) often underestimate its value because they do not consider decision-maker perception about risk. We assume here that managers, as the decision-makers, have appropriate business understanding and they can provide substantial information about risk characteristics regarding all business processes. Therefore we are focused, in this paper, on collecting data from managers across the different businesses to derive the appropriate knowledge about risky events, the importance of particular types of risk, the relationship between the risk outcomes and the level of risk control in a particular industry. We conclude that the collected data has a high potential for use as a benc hmarking reference and analysis for improving ERM models for individual businesses.

Description: In a very general setting this paper describes a straightforward, non-parametric approach to aggregate "stand-alone" or marginal distributions with desired correlations without imposing additional assumptions on those marginals. We then develop two optimizations for the enterprise, one based on maximizing return on economic capital and the other based on a mean -semivariance efficient frontier from the investor point of view.

Description: Complete issue of the August 2014 Risk Management newsletter.

Description: Feature article discussing the IASB’s and FASB’s introduction of the use of other comprehensive income (OCI) to report certain changes in the value of insurance contracts.

Description: This essay explores the role that the emerging defined contribution retirement system may be playing in the growth of wealth inequality in the United States. The current system leaves many Americans with little or no retirement savings. Those with higher accumulation levels appear to invest proportionally more in equities, which may have an exponential effect of balances over long time periods. The author hypothesizes that willingness to take investment risk involves the relationship between the amount an investor has accumulated and what she/he needs in order to cover basic costs of living. This is one reason that investors with greater accumulation levels may be able to earn higher rates of return. The essay concludes by suggesting that the U.S. defined contribution system should include all workers and provide additional fiduciary guidance. Examples reforms, both in the U.S. and other countries, are provided.

Description: This paper presents the output of in-house research on an emerging area of risk appetite management and our global implementation best practices. It intends to provide readers with detail implementation of risk appetite framework and assessment across an organization. It provides the conceptual risk appetite framework based model- developed by the author, implementation plan, and global best practices of a risk appetite assessment across an organization. It identifies the challenges and exceptions in the risk appetite assessment with an approach to manage it effectively, and helps organizations with cost-benefit analysis. It also includes an illustrative case study.

Description: Research report describing the results of an Emerging Risks Survey conducted in 2016. The report, the tenth in a series, includes comparisons to the previous surveys.