Description: In this session 100OF of the New York Annual Meeting panelists discuss the major consequences and potential effects of the current economic environment, including the choices of assumption that actuaries should consider in performing cash-flow testing. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: Full version of Small Talk Newsletter, May 2001, Issue No. 17.

Description: Identifies some key pitfalls in developing equity-indexed products and suggests some steps insurers can take to avoid unpleasant financial surprises.

Description: From a session at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999 Equity-indexed products require an asset strategy that matches the equity options embedded in the liability. The panel discusses the following: A. Two asset strategies 1. Purchasing equity options that match the liability options: Is this a perfect match or are there still unhedged risks? 2. Dynamic hedging using the mathematics of “the Greeks”: Is it self-insuring? B. Accounting issues with these strategies

Description: This 2001 article discusses the requirement to assess hedge effectiveness in the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new statement on derivatives accounting, FAS 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, as critical for qualifying for “special” hedge accounting. The article provides analysis of different approaches and the potential difficulties encountered. This article is reprinted with permission from Derivatives Week.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. This session describes the general features of advance programs operated by various Federal Home Loan Banks, summarizes potential benefits to insurers and identifies key issues surrounding the programs.

Description: Full version of The Financial Reporter, Number 41, February 2000.

Description: Full version of The Financial Reporter, Number 42, June 2000.

Description: This article speculates on the presence and magnitude of the benefits attributable to regular rebalancing of one's investment portfolio. It surveys the extant literature, discusses certain implications, and presents conclusions.

Description: The new ways of calculating capital requirements are relatively untested. We may be witnessing the results of such a test today. As of this writing, the global economy is almost surely entering a serious recession. One of the reasons for this appears to be inadequate capital provisioning. The failure of capital regimes to protect financial entities and, by extension, their customers has had unfortunate effects on the markets and economies of the world.