Description: The Chairperson addresses the readers.

Description: 1993 SOA Spring Meeting, Boston. In this session the panelists discussed the new standard valuation law. Areas covered included: 1. Risk of legal liability? 2. Vagueness of actuarial standards? 3. Reliance on other company experts? 4. Consultants versus company actuary perspectives? 5. The science versus the art of the process?

Description: This presentation is an open forum from the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 20-23 in Toronto. The panelists, including a member of the Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors, and a vice president of the largest insurance testing lab, Home Office Reference Lab, discuss new underwriting technologies, including genetic testing, alternative AIDS testing methods, and the legal and other implications. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 17, No. 4A.

Description: Presented at May 19996 Spring Meeting. This session focuses on emerging compensation plans in the life insurance industry: levelized commissions, potential changes in NY regulations, compensation in alternative channels, salaried agents, innovative programs.

Description: This presentation from Session 20PD of the SOA 1996 Orlando Annual Meeting examines the major trends in insurance laboratory testing from 1980 to 1985, with an emphasis on why blood testing thresholds were lowered dramatically in the mid-1980s and why those thresholds will persist into the next century. The value of liver function testing is examined as a case study in protective value. Issues addressed include: 1. What is the real impact of human immunodeficiency virus [HIV]-1 testing [sentinel effect]? 2. The unique pay-offs from liver function tests, 3. Clinical medicine mortality versus underwritten mortality: overcoming problems caused by different perspectives, and 4. Cotinine pays the freight? From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 22, No. 3.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 Annual Meeting an overview of the European life insurance market with respect to products, distribution, pricing, regulation and taxation.

Description: This is the abstract of a paper that builds on previous work concerned with measuring equity, and considers the problem of using observed claim data or other information to arrive at premiums which maximize equity. When these optimal premiums are used, it is shown that gathering more information or refining the risk classification must always increase equity.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to trace the change in Canadian company expenses, comparing the six postwar years 1946 to 1951 with the prewar year 1939. Includes costs per policy and as percentage of premium, and also compares to expected costs. Expenses by company size are also shown.

Description: Discusses the reasons for changing emphasis on reserve strengthening programs and looks at methods adopted to emphasize the reserve character of undistributed surplus.

Description: This paper presents multiple book reviews: Reports from Staff of U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Reports in Connection with Social Security Legislation 1975-77, 'Statement on Cost Comparisons of Individual Life Insurance Policies', by Canadian Institute of Actuaries, 'Investment Activities of Life Insurance Companies' from Huebner Foundation Lectures, 'The Life Insurance Industry's Marketing Dilemma' by Johns, 'The Future of Social Security' by Munnell, 'Social Security - Today and Tomorrow' by Ball, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Batten, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Batten, 'The Crisis in Social Security - Problems and Prospects' by Boskin, 'A History of Interest Rates' by Homer, 'Indexation of Pensions and Other Benefits' by Robert Myers, 'Life Insurance Accounting' by Strain, '1978 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund...' by US Congress. Brief summaries of additional readings are also included.