Description: The implementation of the IFRS 17 insurance accounting standard has brought significant changes to the financial reporting landscape of insurance companies. With new disclosure requirements and altered profit analysis, understanding and interpreting future profitability have become a topic of concern for the industry. While stability remains a key objective for insurance companies, the earning patterns might become more volatile especially when the contractual service margin (CSM) is exhausted, and a loss component (LC) needs to be established. Reinsurance, a common risk mitigation tool, can play a pivotal role in managing earnings volatility and minimizing losses for onerous measurement units. In this article, we propose a new key performance indicator (KPI) called “loss recoverability” to assess the performance of reinsurance treaties in achieving these objectives. We explain how this KPI can be utilized in multiple scenarios to evaluate the effectiveness of reinsurance strategies and pursue stability in earning patterns.

Description: In the United States, there has been much industry discussion of the challenges associated with a sustained low interest rate environment, which impacts both the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet in unfavorable ways. The intent of this article is not to focus on these strategic issues. Rather, we attempt to shine a spotlight on some of the modeling challenges that practicing actuaries may experience when incorporating negative interest rates into their models.

Description: Actuaries and their IT counterparts are required to collaborate more frequently and on more complex projects than ever before. The recent accounting changes (LDTI, IFRS 17, PBR), investor demands for increased transparency, and competitive pressures have led to many insurers undertaking large actuarial and financial transformations. As a result, senior management is challenging their actuarial and IT leaders to develop new processes that use data in new and improved ways. The actuarial and IT functions are being tasked with not only delivering on changes to systems, processes, and data, but also with rethinking how their teams collaborate and interact

Description: S&P Global released its initial version of proposed changes regarding its Insurer Risk-Based Capital Adequacy methodology and assumptions on Dec. 6th, 2021. Unlike prior guidance notes or criteria releases, the proposed changes comprehensively updated the current S&P rating criteria released in 2010. These updates would directly impact many insurers. S&P Global anticipates that 10 percent of existing ratings in the insurance sector would be impacted and the change would lead to more positive rating implications than negative impact. This article focuses on the proposed changes on the S&P risk-based capital (RBC) vs. the current model, then simulate impacts to a representative U.S. life insurer through an illustrative case study.

Description: Interest Maintenance Reserve ("IMR") has become a hot topic recently due to rising interest rates, causing decreases or even negative IMR balances for some insurers. This article aims to exam some new questions facing financial reporting actuaries: - How should negative IMR be treated for statutory reporting? - What are the other actuarial implications of negative IMR? - What have regulators done and/or plan to do about negative IMR? - What are potential mitigants?

Description: As an addendum to a July 2022 article, this article restates the formulas then presented for a framework to measure the reinsured portion of a direct loss from capping a net premium ratio or flooring a liability. The article corrects a flaw in one of the original formulas and shows, by example, how the framework can be applied to a specific application of reinsurance accounting.

Description: The paper discusses the role of a regulatory actuarial auditor, the risk focused examination process and the policyholder protection provided by the states, and the impact of varying state laws on the valuation process, and the importance of avoiding actuarial software becoming a black box. There is a discussion of the potential problems presented by the potential use of artificial intelligence, as well as suggestions for academic researchers to answer the pressing questions of whether artificial intelligence can potentially be used for valuation purposes.

Description: This is the first in a series of articles about accounting for reinsurance under GAAP Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts (LDTI). It provides an introduction to the topic, giving an overview of what has and hasn't changed. Changes include a few that directly address reinsurance and others that indirectly result from changes to direct accounting and the existing ties between reinsurance and direct accounting.

Description: The session is based on an article of the same name featured in the January, 2023 issue of Health Watch. It gives a step-by-step method of how to apply the average paid PMPM method to calculate IBNR with zero run-out, as opposed to current methods, which generally require a three-month run-out period. Methods for obtaining confidence intervals for the IBNR estimates will also be discussed.

Description: This year’s Life Meeting was unable to take place in person as planned in New York City. We are looking forward to the Life Meeting returning to New York City in 2024!