Description: Learn about the industrial practice for constructing the mortality table from 0 to 1 through journeys in Hong Kong and Singapore, including key takeaways. Hear speakers share their biggest challenges during their process, how they resolved them, and discover the most common technical issues faced in conducting the mortality tables.

Description: In the United States, there has been much industry discussion of the challenges associated with a sustained low interest rate environment, which impacts both the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet in unfavorable ways. The intent of this article is not to focus on these strategic issues. Rather, we attempt to shine a spotlight on some of the modeling challenges that practicing actuaries may experience when incorporating negative interest rates into their models.

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: Discussion on modeling Medicare Supplement insurance and the considerations when choosing an Actuarial Modeling Software (AMS). Focuses on model risk management, key modeling assumptions and inputs, and the complex interactions between modeling assumptions and why its critical to have a model that can handle that complexity. This article also touches on the incorporation the of accounting and regulatory regimes into the model, including Statutory, GAAP (Legacy and LDTI), and Tax regimes, and the modeling considerations for sensitivity testing and capital planning. Lastly, the article highlights the capabilities to look for when choosing an AMS for Medicare Supplement

Description: 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium. The panelists discussed applying economic scenario generators in the life insurance business, a particular generator that has been developed at SS&C Technology Company, a way of reducing the number of scenarios to get the maximum amount of information, and what to look for in a software vendor.

Description: An overview of guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits (GLWB) on registered index-linkedannuity (RILA) products and a stochastic analysis of market risks.

Description: Market consistent valuations require path-dependent discounting for scenarios. IFRS 17's requirement to discount best-estimate cashflows using locked-in rates could give non-sensical results in many instances. This article describes a technique for calibrating each of the scenario's cashflows so that they can be discounted with other discount factors or curves without distorting the value of underlying options and guarantees.

Description: 2003 Valuation Actuary Symposium, San Diego, CA. In this Teaching Session the instructor discussed the importance of making sure the correct inferences were drawn from stochastic testing exercises. Topics included: 1. Applying the assumption of a normal distribution. 2. Drawing inferences about, and creating confidence intervals around, a population mean. 3. Drawing inferences about, and creating confidence intervals around, tail percentiles. 4. Certifying anticipated mortality under XXX in a mathematically concise way.

Description: In this article, we talk to Lei Rao-Knight, FSA, Vice President and Actuary at Prudential Financial. Lei discusses her model development experience in the Modeling Center of Excellence.

Description: Read the November 2019 issue of The Modeling Platform, published by the Modeling Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.