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: A recent SOA regional meeting featured discussion on an age-old actuarial debate: Within the same company, should the return on equity ROE target vary by profit center PC depending upon the risk of the PC?

Description: This paper studies how changes in the fractions of various groups of individuals, the survival probabilities of various types and the attitudes towards risks of the customers affect the equilibrium price of annuity contracts. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House ARCH 1989 Vol. 2.

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 and indexed variable annuities. 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 approaches 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 regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: In a recent Society of Actuaries' regional meeting, there was a discussion on an age-old actuarial problem. Within the same company, should the return on equity ROE target vary by profit center depending upon the risk of the profit center? For example, should company management demand a different ROE from the Group Health line than from the Ordinary Life line?

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22 , No. 7. This articles explores the dangers posed by many guaranteed-return life insurance and annuity products.

Description: This article discusses an update to a survey that focuses on how companies are trying to price for and understand the risks inherent in the products they sell.

Description: The article describes the 2017 Redington Prize-winning paper "Lapse-and-Reentry in Variable Annuities", by Thorsten Moenig and Nan Zhu, FSA.

Description: Summary of the SOA's Annuity Valuation with Dependent Mortality research report which examines the standard industry practice of assuming independent lives for insurance products that cover multiple lives.

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 and indexed variable annuities. 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 approaches 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 regarding the difficulty of risk management.