Description: This article summarizes the treatment of changes in the basis for determining life insurance tax reserves under prior law and describes the changes enacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It further explains the procedures for changing the basis of computing reserves under the new rules as outlined in Revenue Procedure 2019-10, the IRS’s December 2018 guidance on the subject, and discusses the uncertainties that remain.

Description: This article is a detailed historical chronicle circa 1870 of a dispute concerning dividend distribution that was to draw into the fray university professors, a future justice of the Supreme Court, the Massachusetts insurance commissioner, and the daily press.

Description: The secretary of the SOA looks back over the last five years at changes in the life insurance business and the actuarial profession.

Description: This article presents the idea that a New Product Notebook, which contains all of the aspects of a product's development and is accessible to all involved, can make the product development process more efficient.

Description: The author's comments on the future outlook for actuaries and the insurance industry. He poses many thought provoking questions about the future.

Description: One of the most fundamental concepts in actuarial practice is the time value of money. For any work in which future cash flows are allowed for, such as reserving or pricing, it is natural to discount to present values so that an appropriate amount of money can be set aside today, allowing for future investment returns. This article discusses yield curve extrapolation methods along with the benefits and drawbacks of these methods.

Description: Part I of a four-part series on insurance product regulations around the world. Provides a good high-level summary of the regulations as of 2002.

Description: Discusses the early days of India's opening up of it's insurance markets and the actuarial profession.