Description: In session 118 TS of the Washington Annual Meeting panelists discuss the growth in variable annuities and the increased insurance industry exposure to mortality risk associated with GMDB. The focus of this session is on current practices in the areas of reserving for GMDB and modeling the GMDB risk. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23, No. 3.

Description: This session at the SOA 1998 Maui I Spring Meeting focuses on the variable annuity market including product guarantees, unbundling, cost averaging subaccounts, asset based compensation, and variable annuitization.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. The panelists provided a brief description of the guaranteed benefits offered on Variable Annuities in both the U.S. and Canada, followed by an in-depth comparison of current issues, including risk assessment, reserving, and cash-flow testing.

Description: 1994 SOA Meeting, San Francisco. This interactive presentation on variable products addressed life and annuity product design, pricing, distribution, and reserving issues.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. This session provides an overview of the various methods used to manage the risks from guarantees of equity-based life and annuity products. Discussion includes the use of reinsurance, self-insurance and static/dynamic hedging.

Description: Regulatory change and increased focus on internal risk management are driving a renewed interest in model efficiency. In this session, we will review several new and existing tools, that show significant promise for advanced modeling of equity linked products. These include: • Clustering • Use of unique--and potentially a different number of--scenarios for each policy • Semi Monte Carlo (SMC) – this is a proprietary technique that is similar to a combination of Monte Carlo and numeric integration • Using a neural network approach to optimize some of the more complex and manual aspects of clustering and improve the fit of the clustered model • Combining SMC with the use of unique scenarios per policy

Description: This article discusses a new procedure for correcting inadvertent failures to satisfy the diversification requirements applicable to variable annuity and life insurance contracts under section 817h of the Internal Revenue Code.

Description: Discusses PLR 201105012, the investor control doctrine, and how the IRS concluded that shares of a Lifecycle Fund, available only through a life insurance company's separate account, still can be considered owned by the insurer and not the policyowner for federal income tax purposes even if it at least partly invests in shares of public funds.

Description: Discusses a one day seminar in Shanghai, China held on August 25, 2011 by the SOA and the China Regional Committee on variable annuities.

Description: The article summarizes several recent private letter rulings from the IRS addressing the "investor control" doctrine in the context of funds of funds.