Description: This paper employs the theory of real option pricing to address problems in the area of operational risk management. Particularly, it develops a two-stage model to help firms determine the optimal triggers in the event of an influenza pandemic. The first stage proposes a regime-dependent epidemic model to simulate the spread of the virus, depending on whether the firm is active or inactive. The second stage views the reactivation decision as a call option and the suspension decision as a put option, and uses dynamic programming method to determine the optimal switching thresholds.

Description: This is the abstract of a paper that considers the pricing of equity-indexed annuities using risk measures and presents dynamic hedging strategies underlying these valuations. Since these products involve mortality as well as financial risks, the authors combine the actuarial and financial approaches to protect insurance companies against the unhedgeable mortality risk.

Description: This article presents an FAQ on protected cell companies. From Reinsurance Section News, November 2007, Issue No. 61.

Description: This paper presents a model for analyzing the impact of underwriting cycles on an insurer’s surplus. The model allows the insurer to vary its security loading in response to the cycles, with a strategy parameter that indicates the extent to which the insurer follows the loading which prevails in the market. The insurer’s claim rate is also allowed to vary to reflect exposure changes that result from the insurer’s strategy. The paper analyzes ruin probabilities using both simulation and a Lundberg-type upper bound which is developed in the paper. It finds that the latter is suitable and convenient for comparing ruin probabilities under the different insurer strategies.

Description: This paper is Part 1 of a two-part submission. Part 2, “An Alternative Approach to Capital Allocation,” discusses using risk-replicating techniques that directly calculate the cost of capital. Such techniques can be used as a substitute for capital allocation. This paper expands upon current capital analysis by introducing a practical approach that considers the objectives of all stakeholders of an insurance company in setting appropriate capital targets.

Description: The articles discusses how Principles-based approaches PBA to setting reserves and capital can be combined with Enterprise Risk Management to create a competitive advantage for an insurance company. Those companies can leverage these models by combining unique risks and strategies to measure and manage risk.

Description: Sometimes, rare things happen and the least expected occurs. Indeed, some events occur once or twice in a lifetime leaving little room to learn from experiences. In financial markets, extreme events, no matter how rare, could have a profound impact on a company or even the whole country. Insurers are also not free from the impact of catastrophic large-scale extreme events. As a result, with pervasive economic and financial revolutions sweeping our world and potential devastative catastrophes, the increasing interest in tail risk management is fuelled by practical issues, including investment downside risk and insurance catastrophe risk. Thus, developing statistical techniques to model extreme investment and insurance losses is certainly a major task for risk managers. the purpose of our paper is to apply moment methods to estimate the joint events such as concurrent extreme investment loss and insurance loss. A novel aspect of this article is that it takes into account the correlation between different assets and insurance lines of business.

Description: This paper first derives the fair participation rate based on a fair value of the equity-indexed annuity EIA. Then using risk measures, a new participation rate is obtained, based on the tail loading of the hedging error distribution. Risk management strategies reducing risk related to the hedging error are also presented. A detailed numerical analysis is performed for a point-to-point EIA.

Description: This paper analyzes the optimal retention level with a portfolio of insurance risks, and premiums invested in risk-free and risky assets. Optimality is defined here as maximizing expected utility of terminal payout.

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: This paper describes the use of the Moses software package to model variable annuities with multiple guarantees. Pricing and risk management are discussed.

Description: This is intended to serve as a fundamental resource for a basic understanding of ERM, as well as a guide to further study of the subject. Members of the Casualty Actuarial Society have participated in the effort, as well.

Description: This is intended to serve as a fundamental resource for a basic understanding of ERM, as well as a guide to further study of the subject. Members of the Casualty Actuarial Society have participated in the effort, as well.

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: 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 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: 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: 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 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: “Non-traditional” guarantees refer to guarantees that are in addition to traditional mortality, expense, and interest guarantees. Examples of such types of guarantees are death and living benefits on variable annuity contracts and no-lapse guarantees on universal life or variable universal life products. The purpose of this paper is to offer practitioners an overview of the various issues concerning the pricing of these guarantees, the many other issues which need to be analyzed and addressed in the determination of risks and the management of the block of business, and the results of a company survey of practices. This paper is based on the working knowledge of the authors, a broad compilation of literature and the company survey results. At the end of most sections of the paper, we have provided a list of resources which we have selected as some of the best sources available for those practitioners interested in researching the subject matter further.

Description: Discussion of how non actuaries are taking on many of the enterprise risk management roles of insurance companies. Discusses changes actuaries need to make to re-assert their roles. Also discusses roles actuaries can play in enterprise risk management outside of the insurance and pension industries

Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 The panelists discuss the benefits of hedging variable annuity guarantees, the challenges they face and how they keep score.

Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 This session discusses emerging capital and reserve requirements on Variable annuities with guaranteed benefits and the effect that hedging/capital management strategies can have.

Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 This session covers different methods for estimating future volatility of financial markets, how to predict the effect of volatility on insurance company results, alternative approaches to managing volatility and the impact on volatility management on the choice of modeling method.

Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 Speakers discuss the approaches to quantifying investment risk, including the credit risk subcomponent and mismatch risk sub-component in the three different types of risk-based capital RBC framework commonly used, such as regulatory, rating agency and company-specific economic-based formulas.

Description: Panelists discuss their practices and experiences implementing risk measurement and management for various health insurance product lines including disability income, long-term care, medical/managed care and group insurance products. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 1., Session 65

Description: Discussion of Capital Market Modeling techniques

Description: A discussion of the value a reinsurer can provide beyond assistance through coinsurance with XXX compliance. There are recent signs that the use of coinsurance and the inherent shift of the burden of the reserves to the reinsurers are putting stress on the reinsurers’ capacity limitations. Reinsurers are able to shoulder only so much of the burden of the reserve strain caused by Regulation XXX. What reinsurers do best, and know best, though, is mortality risk. If your company is seeing signs from your reinsurers that this is the case, this article will present some thoughts to consider as to why sales of level term products may still be acceptable, even without the support of coinsurance programs.

Description: This session from the 2003 Washington D.C. Spring Meeting discusses a variety of risks that need to be considered in pricing life and annuity products. This session also reviews the results of the Risk Management Task Force Survey including how companies were measuring profit, how they were reflecting risk in pricing, how results were analyzed and how specific risks were being modeled. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 29, No. 1, Session 7PD.

Description: The creation of the short/long portfolio is the essence of the intermediation business. The result is that the efficiency of use of capital in the economy is improved, and economic growth is facilitated. From Asset-Liability Integration, M-FI02-1.

Description: An overview of the principles, underlying theories, and the various strategies employed in Asset/Liability management. From Asset-Liability Integration, M-FI02-1.

Description: Panelists discuss the risks inherent in common variable and equity-indexed annuity designs, including Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefits [GMDBs]. The effects of changes in interest rates, market level, and implied and actual volatility on economic and accounting results, as well as reinsurance and various kinds of hedging, are discussed. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 121PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Panelists identify the risks and risk-mitigating actions that an insurer can take. Approaches discussed include reinsurance, investment programs and offsetting risks in one product against those in others.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Discusses the status of the second phase of the AAA C-3 Risk project. This project is leading to an updated NAIC filing requirement and is a step toward fair value. The specific focus is on equity risk and bond funds in the distribution tails. Products covered include variable life and annuities.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. The panel identifies the risks in various life products and the product development actions that can enable an insurer to manage the risks.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Attendees learn about tools used to manage enterprise risk and optimize firm value. Potential topics include economic surplus, earnings at risk, and law of one price. Attendees learn how various risk-management tools can complement each other.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Discusses the nature of the risks associated with equity-based and equity-linked products, and how those products can be managed with the use of capital market instruments.

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: A New Perspective on Risk Management: Creating Value by Managing Risk by Francis P. Sabatini and Joseph Weiss from The Financial Reporter, December 2001, Issue No. 48.

Description: From an interactive forum session at the 2001 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, November 29-30, 2001 Discussion of the major financial reporting issues and concerns of senior actuaries in life insurance companies. Discussion focused cash flow testing methods and interpretation of results.

Description: From a session at the 2000 Valuation Actuary Symposium held in Washington DC, September 14-15, 2000 Panelists discuss low probability high impact events: how these risks are identified what tools are available to measure the risk techniques used to manage the risk in an integrated fashion.

Description: From a session at a meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Diego, CA, June 22-23, 2000 A discussion of how stochastic modeling techniques can be used to efficiently and effectively consider a wide variety of scenarios and outcomes and how these tools can be used to optimize portfolio performance?

Description: This paper charts the economic status of women moving from marriage to widowhood, and examines the changes in income and income sources that actually occur as women are widowed. The paper focuses, in particular, in the actual and potential role of pensions in preserving the economic status of widow. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.

Description: This paper examines the social structures that are determining retirement for female Baby Boomers, and what can be done for these women to reflect the shift from shared responsibility to individual responsibility for retirement security. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.

Description: Interest sensitive products including SPDAs can be thought of as spread lending business. The purpose of the paper is to introduce the excess spread approach to measuring the profitability of nonparticipating insurance products. The article describes how the excess spread approach is used to price and manage the products and its risks. From Society of Actuaries Reporting Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: From a session at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999 Panelists discussed a comprehensive risk management approach to quantify the risk exposure from various sources.

Description: Panelists discuss different aspects of self-selection among Medicare options. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: Panelists discuss the role of the valuation actuary in health insurance. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: In December 1997, the Society of Actuaries held a conference whose focus was actuarial and financial modeling. During the course of that conference, one of the speakers mentioned a number of technologies his firm was using for modeling, which were either unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar to some of the audience. The purpose of this paper is to define each of the technologies mentioned during that presentation and to briefly describe their distinguishing characteristics. The technologies discussed in this paper are statistical pattern recognition [SPR], neural networks [NNs], genetic algorithms [GAs], simulated annealing, fractal analysis, chaos theory, rule induction, data fusion algorithms [DFAs], data compression, fuzzy logic, case-based reasoning, and expert systems.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. This session provides varying perspectives on corporate approaches to the macro management of risk. In this paper, areas such as risk identification, asset/liability management structure, and secular trend analysis will be discussed.

Description: Presented at June 1996 Spring Meeting. A panel of experts discuss risk management and capital management issues for disability insurers and the potential role of reinsurance.

Description: Panelists discuss: [1] investment quality as a dynamic investment consideration, [2] the impact of securitization on investment quality, [3] measuring default risk, and [4] the interrelationship between C-1 risk and C-3 risk. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 4A.

Description: Panelists discuss efforts toward developing a more-formal set of requirements for the valuation actuary in the valuation process. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 3.

Description: Panelists discussed: [1] investment products oriented toward asset/liability matching, [2] asset/liability management [ALM] including the C-1 and C-3 Risks, [3] current ALM practices among life insurance companies, and [4] regulatory developments in this area. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 4B.

Description: Committee members discuss the objectives of COVARA, areas of current research, summary of findings about C-1 Risk, C-2 Risk, C-3 Risk, and Combination of Risks, and future areas of committee interest. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 4B.

Description: 1987 Valuation Actuary Handbook: Chapter 1: Addresses life insurance company statutory reserve valuation.

Description: From the 1985 Valuation Actuary Symposium A review of the process involved in making an actuarial opinion and in developing the related actuarial report to management. This was accomplished through a case study approach, specifically covering a universal life product.

Description: From the 1985 Valuation Actuary Symposium Discussion of the practical application of cash flow testing in the valuation process.

Description: This paper studies the statistical theory underlying minimum surplus required to protect a group insurer from the insurance, or C2, risk. Followed by 2 submitted discussion papers

Description: Panel discussion focused on the Effective Use of Capital. Topics included: 1. Definition of capital 2. Appropriate level of capital and surplus in a life insurance company 3. Alternatives for deploying capital 4. Returns a life company should demand on invested capital 5. How much a company should charge for lending its capital in reinsurance transactions

Description: Panel discussion focused on the Effective Use of Capital. Topics included: 1. Definition of capital 2. Appropriate level of capital and surplus in a life insurance company 3. Alternatives for deploying capital 4. Returns a life company should demand on invested capital 5. How much a company should charge for lending its capital in reinsurance transactions

Description: This paper outlines a method of parametric modeling that may be used to produce forecasts and forecast intervals that will convey a measure of the reliance that may be placed on the forecasts. Followed by 2 discussion papers submitted