Description: In a recent Society of Actuaries' regional meeting, there was a discussion on an age-old actuarial problem. Within the same company, should the return on equity ROE target vary by profit center depending upon the risk of the profit center? For example, should company management demand a different ROE from the Group Health line than from the Ordinary Life line?

Description: Editorial discussing risk management in today’s economic world.

Description: This material, Appendix II of the 1987 Valuation Actuary Handbook, is an appendix to Chapter II of the Handbook, ‘Methods of Analyzing cash Flows to Test for Reserve Adequacy.’ In this appendix, the authors provide more detail on what they call cash-flow based surplus, and how this concept can be used. It is defined as the amount of cash that could be removed and leave assets sufficient to mature all benefits on a true economic basis, i.e. ignoring statutory accounting requirements, under an assumed interest rate and experience scenario.

Description: Editor's column for the September 2016 issue of NewsDirect.

Description: A discussion of the possible effort required and impacts resulting from the implementation of C3 Phase II for establishing risk-based capital for variable annuities. This article will describe practical considerations gleaned from actual valuation calculations recently performed by a consulting firm.

Description: In this paper the author develops techniques for measuring GAAP return on total capital by line of business, where total capital includes “benchmark surplus,” the amount of statutory surplus set aside, in addition to reserves, to support in-force business. The author also shows how GAAP returns relate to the internal rate of return the actuary may have calculated to describe expected profitability on a statutory basis. Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982 Volume 34.

Description: This dialogue discusses the history and purpose of section 811(a) and its historic role in the computation of life insurance company taxable income and, in particular, reserves.

Description: This article is an abstract of the Deloitte whitepaper “Financial KPIs in the New World” that will be published in January 2023. It provides a market view of how the new Financial KPIs will be integrated in the insurers’ decision-making process and about the main challenges and opportunities for insurers’ management and external stakeholders in the jurisdictions that have adopted IFRS17 and in particular countries in the EMEA region.

Description: In this paper, chapter V of the 1987 Valuation Actuary Handbook, the authors start with a discussion of how the recent economic environment with volatile interest rates has changed the valuation and surplus management process to one more dependent on actuarial judgment. In a discussion of surplus policy, the authors identify four “layers” of surplus which have been identified by scenario testing. These surplus layers, along with policy reserves, are based on specific invested assets. The paper discusses implications for the future and notes the actuary’s ability to advise management on surplus adequacy is a basic tool of risk management.

Description: This article is a response to an article on the same subject in the March 1968 issue of The Actuary. The author notes that the recommendations in the report in question regarding surplus levels are more appropriate for non-life companies.