Description: The purpose of this report is to develop information that may be useful to the Pennsylvania legislature in its efforts to regulate the funding of pre-need contracts. What we have done is to develop a theoretical basis for regulation and then to suggest some practical approaches to initial implementation.

Description: This paper studies the joint distribution of the time of ruin, the surplus immediately before ruin, and the deficit at ruin. The classical model is generalized by discounting with respect to the time of ruin. The authors show how to calculate an expected discounted penalty, which is due at ruin, and may depend on the deficit at ruin and the surplus immediately before ruin.

Description: This paper reviews the Value At Risk concept, a financial risk management tool and discusses its application to insurance. Difficulties with this application are described and modifications suggested. An alternative tool, expressed as a risk adjustment to economic value, is suggested as an additional measure.

Description: There is growing evidence of a positive correlation between income levels and longevity. In short, high-income earners live longer. That also means that high-income earners get larger retirement-income security benefits from Social Security. This correlation raises a number of questions: if Social Security contributions are a level percentage of earnings, and high-income earners live longer and receive larger Social Security benefits, then is Social Security regressive? If higher-income actually causes enhanced longevity, then would providing more Social Security benefits enhance population life expectancy? This paper analyzes both the OASDI system of the United States and the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans in Canada to see if these systems are 'a good deal' and whether they are regressive or progressive as defined above. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1998 Vol. 1.

Description: Most computations that are done within actuarial science entail using discrete death rates associated with incremental ages. It's not that continuous death rates cannot be used, it's just that discrete values tend to be more convenient to work with. Of the various continuous probability distributions, the one most closely associated with actuarial science may be the Gompertz distribution. This paper takes a closer look at the Gompertz, starting with the motivation behind Benjamin Gompertz proposing this particular distribution. Then the paper develops procedures to estimate the parameters for this distribution, and it ends with a brief example of the procedures presented in the paper.

Description: An Abstract on Approximate Solution for the Unknown Rate of Interest for an Annuity Certain

Description: These are abstracts of the following papers: 1. 'DISCONTINUITY AT THE BOUNDARY' by Beda Chan. 2. 'ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BALDUCCI AND UDD.' by Murray Silver. 3. 'PROBLEMS IN AND A SYLLABUS FOR DEMOGRAPHY' by John A. Beckman. 4. 'A MATHEMATICAL APPROACH TO YIELDS UNDER VARYING INVESTMENT CONDITIONS' by A. Spedding. 5. 'COUNTERPART EXPOSURE FORMULAS UNDER THE BALDUCCI AND UNIFORM DEATHS ASSUMPTIONS' by H. J. Boom. 6. 'DUALITY BETWEEN UNIFORM DEATHS AND BALDUCCI ASSUMPTIONS' by Elias S. W. Shiu. 7. 'RECENTLY PUBLISHED U.K. MORTALITY TABLES, METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION, AND POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS THEREFROM' by J. J. McCutcheon. From ACTUARIAL RESEARCH CLEARING HOUSE, 1980 VOL. 2.

Description: Describes purpose of ARCH and editorial policy.

Description: Table of Contents

Description: This paper attempts to broaden the actuary's understanding of decrement rate estimation and to clear up some of the more common misconceptions which have been promoted.