Description: This session covers the economic principles of “buffet pricing” and whether such pricing can be used for health care. Presented is an argument in favor of “all you can eat” pricing of health care where consumers pay a fixed fee and have no constraints on consumption. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 1, Session 118

Description: Part 4 presents an alternate approach to obtaining the fair value of the public sector employer’s pension benefit liability.

Description: These essays encourage actuaries to share how they incorporate financial risks of environmental sustainability into their work for employers or clients.

Description: This paper reviews the current state of the AIDS epidemic and the impact on non-drug-using heterosexuals. This paper shows that for most heterosexuals, the risk of becoming infected with the AIDS virus by sexual contact is insignificant compared with many other risks of life. The paper presents some recommendations for AIDS education and other perspectives. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1992, Vol. 44.

Description: Recognizing an opportunity to help serve its members in this age of increased financial oversight, the Health Section of the Society of Actuaries commissioned a series of guides on the use of statistical techniques specifically geared for the work of health actuaries. In this first guide in the series, the topic is an estimate well-known to health actuaries- the calculation of incurred but not reported [IBNR] health claims reserves. In particular, this guide focuses on the development of confidence intervals around IBNR estimates.

Description: This paper asks the Modligliani-Miller question regarding the mortgage markets. The paper is essentially about the genesis of the credit crisis. The proposed answer is that the practice of risk should not be allowed without actuarial supervision.

Description: 2004 SOA Spring Meeting, Anaheim, CA. This session was about various alternative skills that actuaries might need such as business acumen, communication skills, asset knowledge, knowledge of broader financial markets, and knowledge of corporate operations.

Description: The decline of importance of private defined benefit plans in relation to defined contribution plans in the United States is a major issue of interest to pension actuaries. This decline is undeniable, and has been attributed to numerous factors: costs of government regulation, societal and cultural changes, changed attitudes of employers, and employees' lack of understanding of defined benefit plans. It has also caused some to proclaim the end of a private defined benefit plan. This work analyzes possible macroeconomic factors contributing to the crisis of defined benefit plans, and proposes an alternative hypothesis for the cause of the crisis: the decline of relative attractiveness of defined benefit plans in relation to defined contribution plans due to the shift in the way relative returns to macroeconomic factors of production, i.e., capital and labor, are allocated in the national economy. Possibilities of improvement of the position of defined benefit plans are also discussed. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1998 Vol. 2.

Description: Participants learn about the demographic, economic, and investment aspects of Social Security systems. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 2, Session 30PD of the Toronto Spring Meeting.

Description: Discusses the reasons for, and the economic impacts of, the backdating of life insurance policies, and what changes in the industry might evolve to address them.