Description: Businesses across the board have been drastically impacted by the effects of COVID-19 over the course of 2020, and insurance was not immune. Perhaps most relevant to this industry’s current capital and liquidity concern is the prevailing low interest rate environment. This has been a global trend in the last decade, and treasury rates in much of the developed world are at or near zero. Reduced investment returns limit an insurer’s ability to achieve their desired return on equity, eliminating previously profitable strategies that depended on the leverage of life and annuity balance sheets. Focus and activity have instead shifted to other methods to counteract the low interest rate markets and accompanying capital strain. Examples include increased mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity within the insurance industry and an increasing focus by private equity firms in the insurance market for asset-intensive products, both of which reflect the goal of increasing yield rates on capital.

Description: This research report study uses the property/liability insurance industry as a research sample to examine how risk management, financial management, and capital management are related to each another. This allows reflecting such relationships in: 1. the managerial decisions in the choice of derivative and reinsurance use. 2. the allocation of asset risks. 3. the determination of underwriting activities as well as liabiity risks. 4. the adequacy of capital levels.

Description: Increased attention was paid to regulatory capital with the global financial crisis in 2008. Whilst companies may not have the incentives to retain a large amount of capital in the absence of regulatory capital requirements, overcapitalized entities can have drawback such as its impact on competitiveness. There are other weaknesses in the regulatory capital model such as its limitation in facilitating risk-based decisions as regulatory capital does not necessarily reflect the economic reality and risks an entity faces. Nonetheless, there are ways for regulators and/or companies to handle the weaknesses in the regulatory capital model. For instance, granularity can be introduced in determining regulatory capital. Economic capital can be used to encourage entities to implement risk management controls and facilitate risk-based business decisions (e.g., risk-adjusted performance assessment and risk-based capital allocation). Ultimately, hav ing effective risk management and risk-based capital determination are ways to prevent company failures and bankruptcies.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting covers new innovative capital structures for the life insurance industry and their impact on financial security. A review of different forms of capital plus the economic impact from both a regulatory and rating agency viewpoint are discussed.

Description: This article is an abstract of the Deloitte whitepaper “Financial KPIs in the New World” that will be published in January 2023. It provides a market view of how the new Financial KPIs will be integrated in the insurers’ decision-making process and about the main challenges and opportunities for insurers’ management and external stakeholders in the jurisdictions that have adopted IFRS17 and in particular countries in the EMEA region.

Description: This article is a response to an article on the same subject in the March 1968 issue of The Actuary. The author notes that the recommendations in the report in question regarding surplus levels are more appropriate for non-life companies.

Description: In this article, the author discusses the report on Insurance Holding Companies recently published by the New York Insurance Departmentconcerning surplus levels. The author questions whether a complicated mathematical approach using risk theory will produce a better result than traditional rules of thumb and experience.

Description: The Federal funds rate increased by 4.25% in 2022 with further increases in 2023, which have already resulted in a liquidity crisis for a few banks. As the rapid increase of the interest rates pushed the new money rates above the yields of many life insurers’ investment portfolios, insurance companies are facing a dilemma between compressed margins from peer pressure and the concern with liquidity shortfalls and realized capital losses should mass surrenders happen. This paper discussed main emerging risks under rising interest rate environment, and several ways to mitigate these risks.

Description: This article focuses on the motivation and trends, rather than mechanics, in Life Insurance Securitization.

Description: In light of recent life insurance company insolvencies, this session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting looks at industry solvency issues. The question of whether or not there is a surplus crisis is debated.