Description: Discussion of FinTech including PIMCO research on 401(k) use of managed accounts and observations about cybersecurity, genetic data, and retirement spend down.

Description: Diverse Risks 2016 Call for Essays

Description: The author explores and argues against the “evolution of thinking” and the position that actuarial thinking is a blend of all three modes of thinking, as discussed by Dave Ingram in the February/March 2012 issue of The Actuary.

Description: Increasing uncertainties and volatility in financial as well as real goods markets increasingly reveal that controlling systems based on deterministic and pseudo-exact values are insufficiently eligible to manage the business activities. This raises the question how management systems can be modified to generate the adequate management impulses in volatile periods. Risk management deals from identifying, evaluating and aggregating chances and risks, which again determine the potential fluctuation range of relevant performance indicators. Everyday corporate life shows that risk management is considered important; but the corresponding processes to identify, evaluate and report chances and risks are seldom part of established decision criteria. This “paradox” lets assume that risks are managed in various differing and unsystematic ways. The combination of traditional controlling methods and risk management is not primarily a methodological challenge. The behavior of the whole organization, practiced over a long-year period, has to be transferred into a new corporate culture of transparent dealing with chances and risks. This paper describes the necessary change management process, which has to come along with necessary methodological modifications.

Description: Crossword Puzzle

Description: This discussion is on asset management for an insurance company, including issues of varying investment strategies for different product lines through various asset segmentation approaches, management of the assets supporting surplus, and asset/liability risk management considerations

Description: Is Risk/Return a sound tool for decision-making? No. It is not consistent, not objective, distorts decision and degrades governance. Why? What shall we do then?

Description: Correspondent's report from the Investment Section Breakfast at the SOA Annual Meeting in Austin 2015