Description: This paper considers the question of whether or not the growth in the size of financial statements witnessed over the last several years has yielded an increase in the quality of disclosure around issues of financial risk and to what extent this disclosure is satisfying the perceived needs of readers of the financial statements, as represented by the investment analyst community. The question is addressed by presenting the results of research consisting of 1 the review and analysis of the disclosures addressing issues of financial risk contained within financial statements issued from 1999 to 2004 by 25 major insurance companies operating in the US and 2 the interviewing of 5 insurance industry analysts to understand their perceptions of what is good and bad about financial disclosure practices of life insurance companies.

Description: The impetus for this paper is a concern that a unification of pricing, valuation, and management-basis financials may be essential to ensure the viability of life insurance companies in the variable economic environment of the foreseeable future, which will have serious effects on interest-sensitive products. The paper offers hypotheses on which any unification should be based. The proposed unification is structured on an equity capital management approach and on a variation of the level-return-on-equity accounting method. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: U.K. life insurers writing participating business are required by the Financial Services Authority to value their assets and liabilities on a market-consistent basis. The purpose of this paper is to: • Explain the valuation approach based on market-consistent values and its rationale. • Set out the issues faced by life insurers in implementing the regime. • Explain how insurers addressed these issues. • Explain the importance of the modeling techniques they used.

Description: This paper presents multiple book reviews: Reports from Staff of U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Reports in Connection with Social Security Legislation 1975-77, 'Statement on Cost Comparisons of Individual Life Insurance Policies', by Canadian Institute of Actuaries, 'Investment Activities of Life Insurance Companies' from Huebner Foundation Lectures, 'The Life Insurance Industry's Marketing Dilemma' by Johns, 'The Future of Social Security' by Munnell, 'Social Security - Today and Tomorrow' by Ball, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Batten, 'Mortality Table Construction' by Batten, 'The Crisis in Social Security - Problems and Prospects' by Boskin, 'A History of Interest Rates' by Homer, 'Indexation of Pensions and Other Benefits' by Robert Myers, 'Life Insurance Accounting' by Strain, '1978 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund...' by US Congress. Brief summaries of additional readings are also included.

Description: This is an addendum to the Modern Deterministic Scenarios for Interest Rate Paper.

Description: This Report presents the results of a three-year study on Demutualization by a Task Force of the Society of Actuaries. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1987, Vol. 39.

Description: This section presents book reviews and summarizes recent publications on subjects that include U.K. social insurance, financing of hospital care, state examinations of life companies, approximate valuation of life and health insurance, mortality forecasting, and valuing estate tax.

Description: The Individual Life Insurance Valuation Mortality Task Force of the Society of Actuaries has completed a new Valuation Basic Mortality Table for individual life insurance. This was updated April 2005 - Age Last Birthday tables added. This zipped file will decompress into 6 documents 2 Microsoft Word documents and 4 Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. ?Final Report.doc ?Appendix A.doc ?Ratio.xls ?Female.xls ?Male.xls ?ALB.xls

Description: The main elements of the current US, Canadian and proposed Solvency II regulatory capital regimes for property and casualty insurance companies are compared in this paper.

Description: This paper presents a surplus-ratio goal that is appropriate for group accident and health insurance and discusses growth, the sources of gains and losses, ways to improve operating gain and tracking results against expectations. A discussion of the paper follows. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1977, Vol. 29.