Description: First demonstrates that the choice of mortality basis in the pre-retirement period is immaterial for a defined benefit plan, valued on the Aggregate method, with a pre-retirement death benefit equal to the present value of the accrued pension. Second, presents comparisons of contribution costs for Aggregate vs. Unit Credit funding methods.

Description: The installment fractional premium scheme, although not practical for actual use, has some interesting theoretical properties. Jordan states, on page 88 of 'Life Contingencies', 'For example, if the insured dies after paying one quarterly premium for the current year, the three unpaid installments for the balance of the year are deducted from the policy proceeds.' This paper discusses the effects of adjusting the unpaid installments for interest.

Description: Presented at 1983 Actuarial Research Conference. The goal is to estimate the form of distribution of T 'time to an event' given 'z', and to explore the relationship between T and z. The methods outlined can be generalized to problems involving multiple failure times - not restricted to death events.

Description: Excerpts from Yee's presentation on the S-Curve reserve for Universal life. The S-Curve represents a distribution of amount of assets needed under 550 scenarios which, together with future premiums, will fund all future policy benefits and expenses. The reserve is a specific point on the Curve.

Description: Discusses some methodological questions which arose in connection with ratemaking for the province of New Brunswick, Canada.

Description: The motivation for various asset valuation methods and their properties are briefly described. Some smoothed value or market-related methods based on arithmetic averaging and exponential smoothing are considered and their effect on funding is discussed. Suggestions for further research are also made.

Description: Small pension plans, are using Cost of Living Allowances 'COLA' in calculating benefits. This paper examines ways to handle COLA in valuations.

Description: Series of letters discussing the controversial Gershenson formula for calculating exposures for mortality tables at the end of the observation period.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to explore the rationale underlying the development of the family of linear compound graduation formulas. As the title suggests, this paper also attempts to defend the Min-Ro member of that family against the unqualified charge that it is a 'poor' graduation method. It concludes with a description of a simple modification of the Min-Ro, and an analysis of the improvement obtained by that modification.

Description: The complex world of life insurance, historically the domain of those gifted in integral calculus and probabilistic and present value mathematics, is explored using Excel spreadsheets and the Solver macro. The cash flow approach to learning life insurance examines how the cash flows through an insurance company without using higher math.