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Risk Management Research Reports

If you’re looking for research projects and reports on risk management topics, you’ve come to the right place. The SOA offers research, authored by an individual or a team of authors, for download in just a few clicks. Most reports are in PDF format.

2025

  • 18th Annual Survey of Emerging Risks – Flash Report
  • June
  • This flash report offers an updated 2025 mid-year view of emerging risks based on responses from risk professionals, identifying shifts in perceptions due to evolving economic and geopolitical conditions.
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  • Resources for ALM Practitioners
  • May
  • A guide and survey resource for ALM best practices and strategic insurer risk evaluation.
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  • Enterprise Risk Management through Deterministic Scenario Analysis
  • April
  • This project examines how companies perform deterministic scenario analysis, focusing on a worldwide IT disruption and its operational impacts. It highlights the use of table-top exercises to estimate direct and indirect effects, leveraging senior managers' experience.
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  • Survey of Emerging Risks - India Market Key Findings
  • March
  • Discover the latest insights on emerging risks in the Indian market with our comprehensive survey report. Uncover key findings on financial volatility, disruptive technology, and climate change, and learn how AI is reshaping risk management. Compare these results with North American trends and explore the optimistic economic outlook for the India market in 2025.
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  • 18th Survey of Emerging Risks
  • February
  • Review the results from the Key Findings Report.

2024

2023

  • Calibrating Stochastic Interest Rate Models
  • November
  • This paper introduces practitioners to the selection and calibration of stochastic interest rate models. Six continuous time interest rate models and their calibration are presented. Actual code and data examples are added to help the practitioner implement them. The emphasis is on hands-on calibration with RStudio. The reader is assumed to have a working knowledge of RStudio, including writing R scripts.
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  • Rating Agency Perspectives on Insurance Company Capital
  • August
  • The SOA Research Institute along with the Corporate Finance & Enterprise Risk Management Curriculum Committee, Financial Reporting Section, and Individual Life & Annuity Curriculum Committee are pleased to make available a research report that aids students and practitioners with their understanding of the rating agencies as they affect the insurance industry.
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  • Regulatory Capital Adequacy for Life Insurance Companies: A Comparison of Four Jurisdictions
  • July
  • The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of capital and key related terms, as well as to compare and contrast four key regulatory capital regimes.
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  • 16th Survey of Emerging Risks
  • June
  • The Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries Research Institute are pleased to make available the 16th emerging risk survey.
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  • What Can Insurers and Pension Funds Learn from Bank Failures – Expert Panel Discussion
  • April
  • Over a short span of two weeks, the financial system has observed the collapse of two mid-sized U.S. commercial banks, California-based Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) and New York-based Signature Bank, and a takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by a rival in Europe. The current turmoil in the financial system is a stark reminder of the importance of effective risk management and regulation.
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  • 16th Survey of Emerging Risks - Key Findings
    January
    The Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries Research Institute are pleased to make available the key findings from the 16th emerging risk survey.

2022

  • Inspiring Actuarial Education through Learning Communities and Research Experiences
    October
    This project pertained to the development of a new Actuarial Science Learning Community model, involving four types of students' engagement: academic coursework, residential life, research, and professional development. The model provided students an immersive exposure to Data Science from the Actuarial perspective, which will result in Actuarial students greatly expanding their skill set and future job opportunities, at the intersection of Actuarial Science and Data Science.
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  • US and Canada: An Era of Value-added Enterprise Risk Management
    September
    Enterprise risk management (ERM) is an orderly or guided conduct of an enterprise to deal with risks. For insurers, ERM requires full support and commitment of the senior management. ERM in the U.S. and Canada has evolved over the years into a complex ecosystem.
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  • Understanding the Connection between Real-World and Risk-Neutral Scenario Generators
    September
    Scenario generators used in financial models to quantify risk are sometimes described as being as either “real-world” or “risk-neutral." The difference is in the treatment of the market price of risk. This report explores the relationship between real-world and risk-neutral scenarios and when it is appropriate to use each type.
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  • India: Growth Opportunities on the Rise
    September
    The Indian market holds tremendous potential for insurance products, especially in segments that remain untapped. The market is evolving in terms of market penetration, product innovation, regulatory changes, government initiatives, capital adequacy and customer experience. In this report, we have highlighted insurance trends in India based on insights gathered from practitioners' interviews, available research and literature, with a particular focus on the enterprise risk management (ERM) function of insurance companies.
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  • U.S. Insurance Company Earnings Review, Second Quarter 2022
    August
    In the second quarter of 2022, publicly traded life insurers reported some of their best financial results since the pandemic began. COVID-19-related claims fell sharply in many product categories. Sales, which had taken a big hit, showed significant improvement as well, though not always to pre-pandemic levels. Sales activity was enough, however, for industry executives to report confidently in their quarterly conference calls that in this regard the worst consequences of the pandemic are over.
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  • 15th Survey of Emerging Risks
    August
    The Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries Research Institute are pleased to make available the full report from the 15th Survey of Emerging Risks.
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  • China: An Era of Insurance Innovation
    July
    The Chinese insurance market is grappling with product innovation, business growth and regulatory oversight as it tries to keep pace with a sharp growth in demand across product segments. In this context, the authors have highlighted insurance trends in China, based on available research and literature, with a particular focus on topics that will drive the enterprise risk management (ERM) function of insurance companies.
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  • Survey of Emerging Risks in China and Greater Asia
    June
    In March 2022, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute surveyed actuarial and risk management professionals in China and Greater Asia for their opinions on emerging risks in the local market. The results are presented in this inaugural China and Greater Asia survey report which provides a comparison with findings from the North American emerging risks survey, now in its 15th year.
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  • Pension Risk Transfer in Canada and the U.S.
    April
    This report was prepared to provide an overview of pension risk transfer for use in the educational curriculum of the Society of Actuaries. It presents general principles and highlights major differences between Canada and the U.S. from a life insurer’s perspective. The focus is on group annuities, which are the most common solution for pension risk transfer.
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  • 15th Emerging Risks Key Finding
    January
    This report summarizes the key findings from the 15th Annual Survey of Emerging Risks.

2021

  • Modeling the Variety of Decision Making
    August
    The Joint Risk Management Research Committee is pleased to present new research that enhances existing actuarial modeling practice. This report discusses management decision making practices and the need for actuaries to build the appropriate level of variability for management actions in stochastic models to achieve a more realistic range of future experience among the stochastic scenarios.
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  • 14th Annual Survey of Emerging Risks
    August
    Read the findings from the 14th Annual Survey of Emerging Risks.
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  • Resurrecting the White Swan Mindset
    August
    This monograph walks the reader through the hindsight, insight and foresight building process while discussing theoretical and practical issues supporting the building of valid forecasts with provenance for each of these schema examples.
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  • Early Detection of Insurer Insolvency
    July
    This study aims to develop a market-based insolvency prediction model to detect financially distressed insurers at an early stage.
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  • Managing Investment Risks of Insurance Contractual Designs
    May
    The Society of Actuaries’ Committee on Finance Research and Joint Risk Management Section Research Committee are pleased to make available a research report developing a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs.

2020

  • Society of Actuaries Research Brief: Impact of COVID-19, June 12, 2020
    June 
    This Society of Actuaries Research Brief has been constructed to highlight some of the key features of the COVID-19 epidemic and contemplate the risks for the actuarial profession to consider in their work.
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  • Future Long-Term Care in Canada
    May
    The Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries' Joint Risk Management Section and the Joint Risk Management Research Committee are pleased to make available a new report demonstrating how ERM can be used for informing decision makers on the future of long-term care in Canada.
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  • Macroeconomics-Based Economic Scenario Generation
    April

    The Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Section and the Joint Risk Management Research Committee are pleased to make available new research introducing actuaries and others to dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models, a type of macroeconomic model.  

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  • Negative Interest Rates
    March 
    View the new study examining negative interest rates and the insurance industry.
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  • Systemic Risk in China’s Insurance Industry
    March 
    This report looks at identifying drivers of systemic risk in China’s insurance industry and develops a measurement method for systemic risk as well as systemic risk dependence between the insurance industry and other industries.
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  • 13th Annual Survey Of Emerging Risks 
    March 
    The Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries' Joint Risk Management Section is pleased to make available the full report from 13th annual emerging risk survey.
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  • Policyholder Behavior in the Tail Joint Risk Management Section Working Group Variable Annuity Guaranteed Benefits 2019 Survey Results
    March
    As part of its work, the PBITT working group issued its annual survey to gather the range of assumptions actuaries use in pricing, reserving, and risk management of minimum guarantees on Variable Annuity products, such as death benefits, income benefits, withdrawal benefits and maturity benefits.
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2019

2018

  • Actuarial Review of Insurer Insolvencies, Future Preventions
    January
    Sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), and Society of Actuaries (SOA), this study looks at causes of insolvency and decisions made by management, regulators, and policyholders over the life cycle of the insolvency. This study is intended to educate insurance professionals on historical insurer impairments and insolvencies and possible future prevention indicators.

2017

  • 10th Survey Of Emerging Risks
    October
    The Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries' Joint Risk Management Section is pleased to make available a research report describing the results of the 2016 Emerging Risks Survey, the tenth in the series.
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  • 2017 Universal Life with Secondary Guarantees Survey Summary
    July
    As part of its work, the PBITT working group issued a survey that gathered the range of assumptions actuaries use in pricing, reserving, and risk management of UL with Secondary Guarantees. This report summarizes the findings of the survey.
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  • 2017 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium
    April
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  • Parameter Uncertainty
    April
    Sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), and the Society of Actuaries' (SOA) Joint Risk Management Section and the Joint Risk Management Research Committee, this study examines and describes parameter uncertainty.
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  • Mitigating Extreme Risks through Securitization
    March
    Sponsored by the Society of Actuaries Research Expanding Boundaries Pool, this research report introduces readers to Insurance-linked securities (ILSs) emphasizing catastrophe bonds (CAT) and industry loss warranties (ILWs). The report also discusses the pricing of ILSs and issues in utilizing them as hedging tools.
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  • Reviewing Systemic Risk in the Insurance Industry
    February

2016

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2012

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2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

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