Description: When annuity products became prevalent in the U.S., they all looked more or less the same. It was where folks put their safe retirement money, yielding modest guaranteed returns with a menu of payout options to help secure their retirement. Over time, this commoditization lead to a pricing squeeze and an exhaustive set of product options and features, exposing carriers to market and policyholder behavior risk over the past decade or so.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits, indexed variable annuities, etc. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approach to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications with regard to the difficulty of risk management.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: Public update on the NAIC VA Capital Reform Initiative.

Description: A discussion of the growing popularity of annuities with guaranteed minimum income benefits GMIB during times of bear markets and some related discussion of product features, minimum statutory reserves and capital requirements for the product

Description: The Society's Task Force to Study Risk of Loss from Changes in the Interest Rate Environment C-3 Risk Task Force was formed in March 1981 with the charge to quantify C-3 risk. The Task Force made a preliminary report as part of a panel discussion on C-3 risk at the Society's October 1981 meeting in Atlanta. This presentation provides an update on the progress to date and its future plans.

Description: The Life Risk Based Capital Working Group of the NAIC asked for a recommended capital standard from the American Academy of Actuaries for variable annuity contracts with guarantees. In response, the Life Capital Adequacy Subcommittee’s C-3 Work Group the Work Group, chaired by Bob Brown, formulated an approach, which has been dubbed RBC C-3 Phase II.

Description: New Zealand is about to launch its first variable annuity with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits. The product design is mindful of the lessons from the financial crisis in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Description: An exploration of drivers, cohorts and dynamics for policyholder behavior for VA and FIA based on industry experience data, including changes in recent years and the emergence of long-term data in key areas. We will also discuss critical elements to developing a sustainable and coherent framework to translate this complex experience data into assumption models.

Description: Panelists provide background and updates on a number of statutory issues relating to life and annuity products, including statutory codification implementation, Actuarial Guideline MMMM, Actuarial Guideline AXXX and implications of the movement to the 2001 CSO table. Changes to federal reporting requirements, through the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are briefly discussed relative to the recent accounting problems in the news. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 78OF of the Boston Annual Meeting.