Description: The Individual Life Experience Committee is holding a competition encouraging actuaries and other interested parties to predict 2017 industry mortality based on a data set containg 2009 - 2016 data. The competition is not only about predicting mortality, but also about explaining and presenting the results.

Description: This article discusses the guidance provided in IRS Notice 2022-6 and prior guidance on whether distributions from an individual account under a qualified retirement plan satisfy the exception to the 10 percent additional tax in Internal Revenue Code section 72(t) for certain substantially equal periodic payments.

Description: A pension actuary and a life actuary collaborate to express public pension liability and asset issues in terms and figures that an insurer would use

Description: The article discusses the use of the keyword strategy in teaching. The literature with a negative view of keywords is reviewed and responded to by advocating keywords with multiple meanings supplemented with relevant instructional guidance. Numerous examples are presented from the SOA preliminary exams. Additionally, advanced use of keywords to problems not having them are presented.

Description: The Life Meeting, is the result of combining the Life & Annuity Symposium (LAS) and the Valuation Actuarial Symposium (ValAct). The Life Meeting will offer sessions specific to pricing and valuation as well as sessions on emerging issues relevant to both groups. These common themes include InsurTech, diversity, accounting change and the current economic environment.

Description: A review of model inputs, suggested methods to getting comfortable with the data that your model is using, and data validation lessons

Description: Wright State University is a public research university in Dayton, Ohio, with approximately 11,000 students. With the lowest tuition fees in Ohio, the university has an access mission and plays a critical role in the region by offering high-quality, affordable education. I joined Wright State University in fall 2019 as the director of the Actuarial Science program. In spring 2020 we attained the Universities and Colleges with Actuarial Programs (UCAP)-AC designation from the Society of Actuaries (SOA), becoming one of only three universities in southwest Ohio at this recognition tier. In this article, I would like to tell you about the journey our program has taken—its successes and its challenges. The goal is to offer a resource to other universities seeking to upgrade their Actuarial Science programs.

Description: This article studies the syllabus as a dynamic, interactive teaching tool that informs and is informed by both solutions of complex course problems and student difficulties with these problems.

Description: Article describing content and key takeaways from experience completing the SOA PA Certificate

Description: Hot Topics in Setting Pension Return Assumptions is the third in a series, following Mathematics of Pension Return Assumption and Inflation, focusing on Effects, Forecasts, and Role in Pension Valuations. What time horizon is more appropriate for Capital Market Assumption (CMA) forecasts: mid-term or long-term time horizon, or a blend of both? How do we map the asset classes of a plan's own investment policy to the asset classes of investment forecasters' CMAs? If we use asset-smoothing for valuation assets, should we use market-driven expected returns or smoothed/average versions of them?