Description: Part 1 of a 2-part series exploring implementation issues for the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 MHPAEA. Part 2 addresses the new enforcement safe harbor, how the regulations could impact the business of behavioral health care and the impending decisions for payors, employers, providers, and insureds.

Description: Article Description * “Agile” development is all the buzz in the IT world. You may have heard your IT teams talk about scrums, sprints, and the war room and wondered if they were playing a strange new sport. Or perhaps you are already applying agile techniques in your product development. This article will discuss what agile methodology is, pros and cons, and how you might apply it to insurance product development.

Description: Introduction and table of contents of essay collection.

Description: Discusses cost-benefit decision-making for acquiring electronic data-processing equipment and installation issues, ability of small companies to compete in pension trust arena, effectiveness of various agency compensation programs in stimulating sales and improving persistency, success of sales to substandard risks and rating methods, and pricing, reinsurance and experience with individual hospital and medical policies.

Description: Compares techniques used by the allies to win WWII e.g., transparency, collaboration, and breaking down silos to how to avert financial crises. Also compares a high-involvement ERM & business intelligence 'BI' technique to a control ERM & BI.

Description: Panel dicussion on the need for information to keep a block of long-term care insurance profitable: what the business risks are, what is being done to mitigate them, what kind of reports are needed, and how these differ from reporting on other types of health insurance.

Description: This paper provides an overview of those cognitive biases most often responsible for flawed risk assessments and provides practical techniques to mitigate them. Through a combination of mathematical rigor, case study, metaphor, and logic, the author highlights systematic errors in our thinking about risk and provides ways to avoid them.

Description: A sound enterprise risk management (ERM) framework functions as an ecosystem by balancing the interdependencies of its elements while constantly adapting to an ever‐changing, external environment. Each stakeholder has a unique role to play in forming a thriving ERM ecosystem by integrating risk‐conscientiousness in decision‐making. A resilient ERM framework has a single well‐ understood risk language and culture to promote healthy risk‐taking behaviors. The central focus of such a framework is concentrated around all stakeholders and everyone is held accountable. Every day, external forces can potentially disrupt how we operatively conduct business. Unforeseen changes in regulation, market trends, terrorist’s attacks and extreme natural disasters are often categorized as extremely adverse. How then will your ERM ecosystem survive the one‐in‐200 event and continue to flourish through dynamically changing environments?

Description: Financial institutions have and continue to suffer substantial financial losses because of their exposures to various operational risks and insufficient risk management. Quantifying operational risk is a critical component of an institution’s ability to manage risk. The model described in the article provides a numerical measure for operational risks existing in a business entity through statistical methods. It takes experience data to reflect both the general features and company specifics of the defined operational risks, while also allowing for managerial discretion. An important achievement is to suggest a level of capital to hold against potential losses arising from operational risks.