Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.

Description: Feature article providing an update on the Committee on Post-Retirement Needs and Risks as of March 2019, including information on the Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program.

Description: This presentation from Session 19 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses the risks faced by retirement plan sponsors, and puts them into context with their operational risks. It covers what actuaries can do to help manage and mitigate risks, and how current regulatory frameworks can inhibit risk management processes. It also discusses the consulting challenges in helping clients find long-term solutions, and how to manage toward those solutions in the short-term. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: This presentation from Session 90 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting focuses on consulting about and communicating retirement plan risks, as well as risk management and mitigation strategies, to plan sponsors. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: Panelists discuss issues important to actuaries acting as expert witnesses in legal proceedings, as well as guidelines for the actual presentation of testimony, focusing primarily in the area of pension plans. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23, No. 1.

Description: This paper discusses the level of reserve funds that a pension plan should maintain to protect itself from a downturn in the financial markets. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.

Description: The author incorporates inflation-indexed bonds into the retiree asset allocation problem and illustrates how Liability Driven Investing LDI can be applied to individual investors. From the 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, March 2011.

Description: This article explores the changing risk profile between the transitional Affordable Care Act (ACA) period (2014-2016) and under the final ACA period (beyond 2017) for the individual market. Actuaries are in a unique position to help facilitate the change from the current ACA period to the final period when health plans will have to take on substantially more risk.

Description: An overview of the evolution of equity-based guarantees (e.g. VA, FIA, etc.) over the last few years and discussion the current lay of the land as it relates to the regulatory, issues, capital markets environment in which these products are offered.

Description: The objective of this study is to measure the amount of surplus which would be needed by a pension plan to account for the risk of insufficient return on assets. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice In Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.