Description: The academy generator is now a staple for actuarial practice. Initially confined to regulatory reserving, increasingly companies are using the AAA/SoA generator for a wider and wider range of applications which in some cases may be at the limits of what it was designed for. How is the AAA/SoA generator being applied in reserving, risk management and variable annuity lines of business? What are some of the challenges actuaries face in using this framework and what are the options for addressing them.

Description: Hear an update on the Product Development Section's initiatives over the past year while enjoying a hot breakfast.

Description: Multiple perspectives will be provided on the factors that are driving global interest rates in today's economic environment. Presenters will discuss the historical evolution of interest rates in developed markets, the shifting landscape in the current environment and what savers (particularly insurers and annuity providers) can do with this information. There will also be some discussion on the general macroeconomic environment and credit condition

Description: The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently introduced the Target Improvements for Long-Duration insurance Contracts (ASU 2018-12), including creation of the market risk benefits product category. The presenters will review and summarize the FASB target improvements and discuss its impact on variable annuities and fixed indexed annuity in-force management and product development.

Description: "The always popular Medicaid Hot Topics session is back with discussions from an expert panelist on the most riveting Medicaid topics of the year. These could include the following: • ACA court battles - what are the potential impacts on Medicaid? • CMS continues to open the door for state flexibility - just what can states now do differently?• Where are we on Medicaid work requirements? • How will the changes to the mega-rule impact Medicaid?• High cost drugs and how states are sharing risk for them (carve-out, risk pools, risk sharing)• And more current topics of interest to Medicaid actuaries!Medicaid is dynamic and it is difficult to stay up to date on all of the changes. This session provides insightful discussion into the major changes that impact actuaries and their companies or state clients"

Description: While there are many approaches currently being taken to transform health care, to be successful, we know that leading and planning for quality improvement is a science. Data is the common denominator as healthcare organizations establish best-practices, and ultimately overcome unintended variation through strong analytic systems. Health care leaders require specialized data analysis education and training to hone their skills in understanding and managing clinical variation. The problem with unexplained variation in healthcare is that it negatively impacts clinical outcomes, increases the cost of care, and diminishes value for patients. In this session, Dr. Ted James (BIDMC and Harvard Medical School Faculty) will explain how actuaries can offer practical solutions that provide insights into variations in clinical practice that cannot be explained by differences in medical conditions or patient preferences.

Description: US pharmacy prices have entered a new era of growth driven by Specialty medications. A bevy of state and national regulations have been proposed to address pharmacy pricing, industry structure and transparency.Health actuaries will learn about US pharmacy pricing structure and how proposed legislation could affect future costs. Actuaries that have responsibility for pharmacy rate/budget setting, RFPs or trend projection will benefit from a deeper understanding of the US pharmacy market landscape and gain an international perspective.

Description: "Visual storytelling is frequently used to effectively convey complex actuarial concepts to our clients and other audiences. When talking about data visualization, we often focus on the explanatory aspect. But data visualization is also a crucial tool in developing insights from large and complex data sets at every stage of data analytics spectrum: • descriptive (what happened?), • diagnostic (why it happened?), • predictive (what will happen?), • and prescriptive (how do I influence what will happen?). In exploratory and modeling stages of data analytics’ project, we let the data tell the story or explore our intuition and hypothesis through data pictures. We demonstrate the power of visual display in healthcare data analytics through vivid examples from the healthcare case studies. These illustrations of data visualization exploratory power range from assessing the quality of data or examining outliers, to exploring variables’ relationships and trends, to hypothesis testing, to guiding in feature selection and models’ comparison and evaluation, to model validation. Throughout these illustrations, we will discuss principles of graphical effectiveness, excellence and integrity."

Description: Accelerated underwriting is changing the world of consumer engagement. The newness and overhaul of these programs creates challenges for development, coordination and management. This seminar will take attendees through how the market is developing, the major pricing, underwriting, and marketing considerations, and what regulators are considering with regard to these programs. At the conclusion of this seminar, attendees will: • Discuss trends in accelerated underwriting • Understand the issues that arise when developing an accelerated underwriting program • Understand best practices in developing an accelerated underwriting program • Explain the impact of accelerated underwriting on underwriting, pricing, marketing and compliance

Description: Through much of the Baby Boomer generation's working lifetime, retirement planning focused on asset accumulation. Strategies like Dollar-Cost Averaging and Asset Diversification became well understood by nearly everyone in the retirement industry. As those assets move into the payout phase (post retirement), the appropriateness of those strategies becomes less clear. Presenters will aim to exhibit and explain how and why adding a Single Premium Immediate Annuity (SPIA) or Deferred Income Annuity (DIA) to a retirement portfolio can help to minimize a retiree's chance of outliving his or her income, and why sellers of annuities should focus more heavily on these product offerings. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to - Identify the reasons why effective asset accumulation strategies may be ineffective in the decumulation phase of retirement - Evaluate the benefit of using at least a portion of accumulated retirement assets to purchase a fixed income stream that the annuitant is guaranteed not to outlive - Explain the benefits of a SPIA/DIA focus to other industry practitioners

Description: The presenters will explore policyholder experience data for long-term products, risks of over-fitting data in developing behavioral models, and ways to mitigate these risks and develop a sustainable and coherent framework to translate complex policyholder behavior experience data to behavioral models using company- and industry-level data. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to: - Identify key drivers of policyholder behavior for long-term product - Understand the risks of over-fitting data and a false sense of precision in developing behavioral mode - Understand techniques that can be used to mitigate these risk

Description: The presenters at this session will provide an overview of recent developments in statutory valuation, U.S . GAAP and regulatory capital issues pertaining to life and annuity products as well as IFRS and the global insurance capital standard.

Description: With advancement of computing technology and innovative product design, creating dependent and nested stochastic scenarios to accurately predict insurance business has become more feasible and affordable than it used to be. However, can technology and research be accessible, applicable and beneficial to all the stakeholders? Sharing research findings and its validation tools has been our interest and focus, and even a resource-saving strategy. The presenters will share a case study on a segregated fund with hedging strategy. We investigate the reserve calculation for its GMMB in an extensive but simplified stochastic model so that our method is adoptable, applicable and extendable to real-word segregated fund/separate account model. The segregated fund model theory and implementation will be presented and its cash flows will be simulated and analyzed for reserve calculation. Varying parameter assumptions will be tested and to be modified for real-world segregated fund with hedging risk for guaranteed benefits. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will gain basic understanding of and access to: - The option pricing model and its application to the segregated fund (variable annuity's separate account) guarantee - Stochastic scenario generators for the interest rates and equity returns - R-code to program from the scenarios simulations to cash flows of hedging errors - Reserve calculations and its sensitivity to various parameter values and - Comparison of methods to increasing efficiency level and the accuracy

Description: Predictive models can improve the traditional actuarial assumption-setting process. Data science techniques can provide deeper insights into experience through their ability to identify key drivers, rank importance and account for interactions. The presenters will cover ways in which companies can utilize predictive analytics to set assumptions, including the various methods available and practical approaches for implementation. They will also discuss the advantages and challenges of using predictive models for setting assumptions for life, annuity and disability products.

Description: Managed strategies as underlying investments in VA/FIA products have seen spectacular growth since the financial crisis. The speakers of these sessions will share their views on the development of this market and what is expected to unfold over the next 12 months in regard to the next generation of products and fund-based strategies.

Description: Reinsurance has been available for VA Guarantees for over 20 years. During that time, the reinsurance market for VA Guarantees has undergone frequent and sometimes violent transformations. Where does the market stand today? What forms and structures of reinsurance are available? Which VA Guarantee designs and features are easier to reinsure? Is reinsurance offered on both newly issued policies as well as in force/legacy books, and which vintages are difficult to reinsure? In an age of sophisticated hedging programs, what role does a reinsurer play in helping a VA writer manage this highly volatile risk? In this session, we will hear from a reinsurer that is actively writing new VA Guarantee reinsurance treaties in the U.S. and around the world, and from a VA writer that has successfully partnered with a reinsurer to enhance its VA product offering.

Description: This session will explore several critical elements in developing a sustainable and coherent framework to translate complex annuity (VA and FIA) policyholder behavior experience data to assumption models using company- and industry-level data, as well as inforce management techniques to handle related risks.

Description: Advice and lessons learned from two industry leaders on how to account for organizational culture and strategy, InsurTech, and customers in order to build a winning environment for innovation and execution.

Description: The Society of Actuaries are once again offering a seminar that investigates all aspects of life insurance, annuity and long term care product tax compliance. Developed by the Taxation Section, participants will be brought up-to-date on recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and learn about the newest tax issues related to product design and administration. Legal, IRS and product development experts will provide vital insights into the challenges of developing and administering products within the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), and allow ample opportunities for networking, questions and information exchange.

Description: This presentation considers a stochastic model for a target benefit pension fund in continuous time.

Description: This presentation establishes a bang-bang solution for the optimal withdrawal strategies.

Description: A Post Retirement Needs and Risks presentation originally given to a local actuarial club, but is suitable for a wide variety of venues.

Description: Insurance companies utilize derivatives in a variety of ways to manage and mitigate risks that are inherent in their investment or liability portfolios. They can be characterized by three main features: medium long-term duration; large volumes; and significant market risk exposure. Given the persistent low interest rate environment across the curve since the 2008 financial crisis, large companies need to hedge their liabilities, as illustrated by the significant recent increase from $786 billion as of fiscal year 2010 to $1,885 billion as of FY 2014 by insurance companies.As the Variable Annuities (VA) guarantees embedded within those liabilities hold a strong convex risk profile with respect to the underlying stock, VA carriers need to buy some convex hedge assets such as options to match the liability risk profile to improve hedge effectiveness, implying the growing cost of hedging. Such market impact of the quantity on the cost of hedging is further magnified in the recent period with the short-lived, but sharp transitions from low volatility to high volatility, when market volatility suddenly increases, even when there were no well-known fundamental catalysts. This partially stems from the growing managed volatility funds embedded within VA ($bn 400).VA carriers willing to trade a large quantity of options will see such market impact as an important dilemma, as the cost of placing one large order to close position will be far greater than the sum of infinitely small orders differed in time. In that context, managing market impact requires introducing an explicit market impact function, the influence of which the agent will try to minimize. The effect on hedge asset prices significantly depends on whether there is or not significant delta hedging activity. In case of no significant delta hedging activity, the risk appetite has a significant influence on the optimal execution strategy. If there is significant delta hedging activity, the optimal trading involve

Description: This session will provide an overview of the evolution of equity-based guarantees (e.g. VA, FIA, etc.) over the last few years and discuss the current lay of the land as it relates to the regulatory, issues, capital markets (e.g. Department of Labor, Dodd-Frank) environment in which these products are offered.

Description: Changes introduced by various Medicare Alternative Payment Models and the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) have accelerated an existing market trend of shifting some of what has traditionally been considered "insurance risk" to providers. The Provider Risk Sharing Boot Camp will give attendees deeper insights into methods, current thinking, and alternative solutions that actuaries can use to help providers understand and manage the financial and actuarial risks that they are taking, many for the first time.

Description: The presenters will provide an overview of the current life insurance M&A landscape, along with insight on leading practices and lessons learned in the deal and merger integration processes.Topics include:M&A market update: recent M&A deal trends in the life insurance industry in the United States and globally; drivers and motives for buyers and sellers in the current environment; and outlook on the future M&A market for life insurersDeal process: key considerations and leading practices at each stage of the deal processLesson learned: a retrospective look at one or more case studies - key challenges and success stories

Description: The presentation will outline the different possibilities insurance companies have to hedge their equity risk for the various products.

Description: View presentations from the 2017 SOA Valuation Actuary Seminar.

Description: The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) continues its development of the Insurance Capital Standard (ICS) with the introduction of ICS 1.0 in summer 2017 and plans for ICS 2.0 in 2019. This session will provide updates on the development of the standards and summarize insights from Field Testing and ICS Consultations. This session will deliver an overview of the framework and provide industry and regulatory perspectives on potential implications and next steps.

Description: PBR projection analyzes the interaction of assets and liabilities as both are projected over the horizon.  Starting portfolio selection, reinvestment strategies and all these approximations may have an impact on overall reserve and capital.  One should probably not be grossing up the corporate bond portfolio as a way to model these alternative asset classes that the company has been investing in to look for yield.  This session will discuss the options facing the valuation actuary in modeling assets in the PBR projection system.

Description: View the 2017 SOA China Annual Symposium Program.

Description: The Committee on Post Retirement Needs and Risks produces research to benefit both actuaries and other retirement specialists. This document provides a summary of key research recently published by the Committee.

Description: The speaker of this session will provide a bottom up analysis and categorization of the $200 billion of volatility control funds related investments while recapping volatility control fund trading around volatility spikes (including Aug. 2015 and June 2016). The assessment of potential market impact of the volatility control funds’ rebalancing activity will also be discussed.

Description: The speaker of this session will discuss some common difficulties one encounters when dealing with exotic equity linked derivatives. In particular, a study of a Monthly Sum Cap (MSC) will be presented. Pricing issues, along with dynamic hedging, as well as projections of MSC into the future will also be discussed. Time permitting, some aspects of historical performance will also be addressed

Description: Mr. Rallis will discuss trends in the market for risk transfer of defined benefit plans in the US. He will also address implications of increasing longevity.

Description: In most countries in the developed world and also in a number of other countries, the population is aging. What impact will a changing demographic structure have, if any, on economic factors such as growth and inflation? This question is of vital importance to actuaries who use demographic and economic projections in the pricing and valuation of products, design of risk management solutions, and in opinions regarding the sustainability of social programs. This research report, funded by the Society of Actuaries (SOA), provides background on research in this area and offers insights that may be of use to practicing actuaries.

Description: The objective of this report is to provide benchmarking information that will help companies address the needs of internal stakeholders in cost-effectively conducting and implementing an ORSA process. In order to obtain this benchmarking information, a cross-disciplinary survey was conducted to find out what insurance companies understand and expect from an ORSA, the effort required to complete an ORSA, and the benefits from doing so. This survey was undertaken on a global basis, with participants that included life, property and casualty (P&C), often referred to as "non-life" or "general" insurers in territories such as Europe, and health insurance companies in North America (the United States and Canada), Europe, and Asia.

Description: This paper develops a pension product that can be offered in a defined contribution pension scheme as a deferred or immediate life annuity.

Description: Presented at August 2011 46th Actuarial Research Conference. Compression methods improve model run time. This talk discusses compression features, trade-offs, validation, and recommended practice.

Description: Regime switching models have become a popular tool in econometric time series modeling since their introduction in Hamilton [1989].These models have been widely applied for equity-returns for investment guarantees. A prominent risk management challenge is hedging these guarantees, given the equity regime switching process. This presentation develops some methodologies for regime-switching portfolio replication and use real world data to demonstrate and evaluate their effects. A Bayesian approach for regime switching model fitting is used, which allows for the examination of the robustness of each of the optimization methods when parameter uncertainty is present.

Description: This presentation from the Actuarial Research Conference of 2006 is an overview of Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefits. It briefly discusses pricing.

Description: Presentation at the 41st Actuarial Research Conference held on August 10-12, 2006 in Montreal, QC. This paper considers the problem of extending regime-switching models for asset returns to the situation with multiple asset markets. The conditional tail expectation CTE is highly sensitive to the assumed dependence structure between the regime models for the different markets. A Monte Carlo simulation is used to illustrate the cost of misspecification. The authors find that the model most commonly used by practitioners is worse than all of the alternatives that they investigate.

Description: Panelists in session 13PD of the 2005 Valuation Actuary Symposium provide a brief overview of the emerging standards for investment and insurance, followed by a more in-depth discussion of key issues and recent developments.

Description: Presented at September 2005 Valuation Actuary Symposium. This session provides a general introduction to embedded value 'EV'. Discussion includes calculation considerations, what affects the movement of EV, and uses and benefits of EV.

Description: Panelists discuss changes to the Medicare program being implemented by the Medicare Modernization Act. Topics include Medicare Advantage and Part D bidding and actuarial equivalence. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 3, Session 101

Description: This presentation from Session 82 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses the risks faced by pension plan sponsors, and the role of the actuary in measuring, discussing, managing, and mitigating these risks. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: This presentation from Session 34 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses the changing risks faced by sponsors of defined benefit pension plans and how actuaries can help these plan sponsors adopt investment and funding strategies that will help manage these risks. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: Panelists provide an overview of ERM: what it is, how it has evolved, and possible risks in the insurance industry. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2, Session 102

Description: Panelists discuss keys to successful disability reinsurance arrangements including excess, and turnkey/quota share reinsurance. Topics include financial terms, administrative provisions, claims, underwriting, tax and regulatory implications. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2, Session 81

Description: New technologies have created alternative treatments to improve vision and hearing. What are these technologies and their cost? Can these procedures be insured? What is the cost impact if covered? From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2, Session 86

Description: This presentation from Session 90 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting focuses on consulting about and communicating retirement plan risks, as well as risk management and mitigation strategies, to plan sponsors. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: This presentation from Session 10 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses thirty years of changing retirement risks faced by American workers. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: The Medicare Modernization Act has created numerous opportunities and as many questions for insurers as well as employers that provide retiree medical coverage. This session focuses on Medicare Part D and new accounting standards. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No.2, Session 38

Description: This presentation from Session 15 of the SOA 2005 Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses current developments affecting health plan contracting with institutional, professional and ancillary providers. Specific questions addressed are: 1. What are the trends in financial arrangements sought by providers?, 2. Has consolidation changed negotiating strategies?, 3. Has technology affected the types of financial arrangements available?, and 4.How can actuaries assist in the analytical/negotiating process?

Description: This presentation from Session 85 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses recent developments in the area of capital planning, what are appropriate capital levels, and how health actuaries should be involved in it. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: This session presents information sources used in tracking health technologies, the value of health technology assessments and clinical data typically available. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2, Session 4

Description: Lessons, tips, and suggestions for properly approaching the first stages of actuarial research.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss strategies for increased modeling speed as risk management, valuation and product development activities have been requiring increasingly complex financial models.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss the value and new features/enhancements of single premium immediate annuities 'SPIAs'.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss the insuring of the aging population in respect to assessment of the health of the insured and resulting mortality costs.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. This session examines financial, economic and traditional actuarial methodological approaches used for solving investment-risk problems.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss annuity risk management, with particular focus on RBC and the proposed Actuarial Guideline on reserving, and how this can be applied to new product development as well as in-force product management.

Description: This session from the 2005 Life Spring Meeting discusses mergers and acquisitions activity, the factors that may influence the level of M&A activity and the potential opportunities for M&A activity in the marketplace today. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 1.

Description: This session from the 2005 SOA New Orleans Meeting discusses issues and concerns related to asset-liability ALM modeling. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 1.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss the use of stochastic embedded value 'EV' in financial management and risk measurement, including considerations in reconciling period-to-period results.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting Panelists examine in detail the subject of annuity risk management and how this can be applied to new product development, as well as in-force product management.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss the process of setting long-term investment assumptions from a practical perspective, including changes in equity return premium, use of risk-neutral scenarios and methodology, and special considerations for setting pricing scenarios.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Discusses 'state of the art' of international mergers and acquisitions in Asia, Latin America and other fast-growing regions.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss annuity risk management and how this can be applied to new product development, as well as in-force product management. Also discussed are the proposed C-3 Phase II capital determinations for various guarantees with and without a hedging program.

Description: This session from the 2005 SOA Spring Meeting discusses SOP 03-1, DAC on internal replacements and Sarbanes-Oxley - SOX Section 404. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 1. Session 70F

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Provides an overview of recent trends with EV in North America and the implications of European EV on North American EV reporting.

Description: In session 64PD of the New Orleans Life Spring Meeting Panelists discuss the current market for annuities and different product designs and features. Also covered the the effect of the standard non-forfeiture law on annuities.

Description: A panel of appointed actuaries, along with substantial audience participation, shares perspectives and practical experience in fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of the appointed actuary. Session 18OF of the 2005 Valuation Actuary Symposium.

Description: Panelists discuss the basics of modeling including: model point selection, appropriate model granularity, static and dynamic model validation, efficient model refresh processes, assumption development, and reconciliation to actual financials. Session 8TS of the 2005 Valuation Actuary Symposium.