Description: The modern valuation manual steps up the need for actuaries to know and apply statistics. If your recall of common actuarial statistical techniques is more than one standard deviation below the mean, this session will provide the lift you need.

Description: This is an image of an example table from a MS Access database.

Description: This article looks at an extensive integrated collection of financial mathematical modeling packages available in R, a language and environment for statistical computing.

Description: This article list descriptions of the sessions that are either sponsored or co–sponsored by the Education and Research Section.

Description: Description of the scheduled sessions that are either sponsored or co-sponsored by the E&R Section.

Description: A disscussion of actuar R, an R package for actuarial science, and its facilities in the fields of loss distribution modeling, risk theory and credibility theory.

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: As a life reinsurer, understanding mortality risk is mission critical. Superior models of mortality risk lead to more competitive pricing in profitable market segments and more efficient use of capital. Surprisingly, modern statistical tools such as predictive modeling have not previously been used to model mortality data to gain this edge. In this paper, we present the use of a predictive modeling technique called projection pursuit regression PPR to model mortality data. We first describe the process of creating a PPR model using inter-company mortality data collected by the Individual Life Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries, and present the resulting model. We then discuss the process of using this model as a starting point for creating a more detailed PPR model of internal company mortality data.

Description: This paper defines Distributable Earnings as the generalized pricing and valuation framework for financial contracts containing the requirement to hold capital or reserves in support of the obligations. It examines the Market Value paradigm and its foundation arising from the pricing of fixed income securities. It reconciles these two methods, showing that market value methods ignore mandatory capital and reserve requirements, which carry both risk and cost. The paper makes the case for the Distributable Earnings framework, not Market Value, as the true basis for economic value for these financial contracts. Finally, it concludes that this framework must be employed in risk-management processes, else fail to recognize a significant source of risk.

Description: This paper defines Distributable Earnings as the generalized pricing and valuation framework for financial contracts containing the requirement to hold capital or reserves in support of the obligations. It examines the Market Value paradigm and its foundation arising from the pricing of fixed income securities. It reconciles these two methods, showing that market value methods ignore mandatory capital and reserve requirements, which carry both risk and cost. The paper makes the case for the Distributable Earnings framework, not Market Value, as the true basis for economic value for these financial contracts. Finally, it concludes that this framework must be employed in risk-management processes, else fail to recognize a significant source of risk.