Description: This paper demonstrates the use of Quantile Regression in the development and understanding of conditional value at risk (VaR) models for enterprise risk management.

Description: Risk management and capital budgeting are two critical components of the corporate decision process. They often need to be considered jointly at the corporate level because of their natural interaction through the dependent risk exposures and other synergetic relationships within an intricate corporate structure in a dynamic business environment. . This paper develops an integrated framework that aligns these two important corporate strategies across business divisions to optimize the streamlined enterprise strategic goal in a multi-period setting. The proposed integrated framework can serve as a practical guideline for corporate executives to optimally coordinate capital budgeting and risk management at the enterprise level.

Description: The Society of Actuaries' managing director of actuarial research provided an overview of research activities including the funding behind research projects and the staff/volunteers involved with research.

Description: This article addresses the issues of short-term volatility, the non-equivalency of traders and, how product development is being impacted by market consistency.

Description: In this paper, Honorable Mention Essay for the Society of Actuaries' Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section 2010 Papers Competition, the author examines the rapidly increasing costs of maintaining the U.S. prison system and the fiscal pressures the federal and state governments are faced with, and proposes a plan for an early prisoner release program “with a rigorous, merit-based approach that can be expected to demonstrate favorable outcomes for the general public and the released prisoner.” This plan involves “an optimized process for evaluating the perils associated with freeing candidates eligible for early release - an individualized assessment and quantification of those risks…” The article goes on to describe the costs, benefits, risks, and critical success factors. The report includes two appendices.

Description: Contemporary ERM has moved from an event-based view of risk to a hierarchical, systems-based approach. In order to operationalize such an approach, a methodology is proposed in this paper that draws on phylogenetic approaches that have been successfully developed for biological evolution. The technique and process provide an insight into the lineage, pace and impact of external conditions on the evolution of risks. They also provide a unique and rational classification of risk in an enterprise that can be used to optimize risk management resources. An example of a fictitious insurance company is used to illustrate the approach. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: This article describes a ranking system for early prisoner release. It is intended to describe the framework and strategy needed for mitigating the risk of such programs and optimizing those programs’ outcomes.

Description: This predictive modeling for life insurers introduction to the collection of essays provides additional detail to the overview of the Predictive Modeling for Life Insurers process and also the research project. The project is a collection of essays that examine how existing or new methods or models can be applied to the life insurance industry.

Description: This “Application of Predictive Models Techniques to Measure Dynamic Policy Holder Behavior in Annuity Contracts” paper by Towers Watson researchers is one of a collection of essays that examine how existing or new methods or models can be applied to the life insurance industry.

Description: This predictive modeling for life insurers paper by a Deloitte research team is one of a collection of essays that examine how existing or new methods or models can be applied to the life insurance industry.

Description: Response to Life Insurance 2020 Foresight – A Call for Essays. An essay stating the author’s vision for the future of the life insurance sector with emphasis on a change to life insurance pricing using biological age rather than actual age.

Description: This article provides some insights into the creativity employed in cash flow testing to help ensure the sound survival of small companies that have limited means.

Description: A discussion of a the Colombian Army Forces pension plan model.

Description: This is a web page containing links to papers presented at the Retirement 20/20 conference held in Washington, D.C. on November 17 & 18, 2008.

Description: The last few years have seen a dramatic change in the way that insurance products are priced. If we traveled back in time 15 to 20 years, we would see a world where most insurance products were priced on the basis of a few static scenarios. In the last several years, pricing on a stochastic basis has become more mainstream—at least for contracts with embedded guarantees.

Description: A disscussion of actuar R, an R package for actuarial science, and its facilities in the fields of loss distribution modeling, risk theory and credibility theory.

Description: This article looks at an extensive integrated collection of financial mathematical modeling packages available in R, a language and environment for statistical computing.

Description: An introduction to ultimate life insurance, a product intended to be flexible enough to meet consumers' needs over their lifetimes. The paper gives some illustrations and discusses the Ultimate Life Financial Risk Analysis computer program.

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: 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. In addition, the paper introduces a technique for estimating capital adequacy that is based on mapping stochastic distributions of regulatory and rating agency capital measures to observable financial rating transition matrices.

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: 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: 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: The panel demonstrates a technique that can help set confidence intervals regarding future rate increases used to satisfy the NAIC rate stabilization model. Specific topics include creating a stochastic model, deciding which variables are deterministic vs. stochastic, developing probability distributions for the stochastic variables, running the model and evaluating the reasonableness of results. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 30, No. 1, Session 21

Description: Disability insurers are showing an increasing interest in benefits that tie closely to long-term care. Several insurers have developed disability products that offer additional disability benefits based on the loss of activities of daily living, while others offer options to convert disability policies into long-term care policies. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 1.

Description: Measurement of the Volatility Risk of Traditional Actuarial Risks for use in pricing and reserving

Description: Panelists discuss the challenges of managing the financial risks of guaranteed minimum death benefits [GMDBs] and guaranteed living benefits [GLBs] on variable annuity contracts. In particular, they discuss managing these risks through product design and through hedging. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 31PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.

Description: This article discusses an upcoming SOA/CAS sponsored project regarding the Modeling of Economic Series Coordinated with Interest Rate Scenarios.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. This session describes the general features of advance programs operated by various Federal Home Loan Banks, summarizes potential benefits to insurers and identifies key issues surrounding the programs.

Description: Attendees learn the most important advances in medical science and current research that may lead to additional breakthroughs. Potential effects of those advances on life insurance products and the life insurance industry are explored. Includes a presentation of neural net applications to enhance life-table methodologies. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 1, Session 16.

Description: This paper discusses the usage of dynamic i.e. open group pension plan valuation in the current and possible future regulatory environment. From The Pension Forum, August 2001, Volume 13, Issue No. 1.

Description: From a session at the 2000 Valuation Actuary Symposium held in Washington DC, September 14-15, 2000 Discussion of newer and more innovative investment structures and the modeling of these securities in cash-flowing testing and asset/liabilities management analysis.

Description: This presentation is a Teaching Session, number 38TS, from the 1999 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held September 23-24 in Los Angeles. The instructors provide an introduction into how complex adaptive systems [CAS] can be applied to solve actuarial problems. They provide a general overview of CAS, including genetic algorithms, neural network, nonlinear modeling, and agent-based modeling, provide recent examples of applications to business problems, and discuss how CAS approaches can be used to address actuarial pricing and valuation issues, such as modeling customer behavior. Discussion from participants is included.

Description: From a session at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999 Panelists address a range of issues related to product development in life insurance companies.

Description: This presentation, session number 90PD, took place at the 1999 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held May 24-25 in Atlanta. The last two years witnessed a proliferation of guarantees on variable annuities and competing investment products: guaranteed living benefits and death benefits on variable annuities, as well as mutual fund death benefits and Canadian segregated funds. “To estimate costs of these benefits, companies have moved away from stochastic modeling to capital market pricing approaches. A panel of experts identify the various risks associated with these guarantees, provide an overview of the different pricing methodologies used in determining the costs, discuss whether companies are charging enough for these risks, and forecast the next wave of guarantee designs.” From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 1.

Description: Discussion of the skills actuaries need going forward to be successful, and hence, incorporated into the new actuarial exam syllabus.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. An update on Futurism Section activities followed by an introduction to common techniques of futurism. Examples are given how actuaries can use these techniques in their day-to-day work.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. The panel examines how insurers and other financial institutions are using the internet and future possibilities are explored.

Description: This paper presents a new methodology for obtaining fast algorithms and closed form solutions for pricing callable bonds in continuous time models. Results are directly applicable to regulatory scenario testing, immunization and market value accounting.

Description: This paper shows that the Esscher transform is an efficient technique for valuing derivative securities if the logarithms of the prices of the primitive securities are governed by certain stochastic processes with stationary and independent increments. From the Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1994, Vol. 46.

Description: This paper sets out, in algorithm form, a one-factor term structure model of interest rates and illustrates the application of such a model to the valuation of loans with prepayment provisions. From the Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1994, Vol. 46.

Description: Panelists discuss: [1] a way to study interest-rate risk using stochastic methods, [2] a conceptual framework needed to evaluate the suitability of an investment strategy for insurance liabilities, and [3] how one company [Capital Holding] develops investment strategies and asset/liability management policies. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 2.

Description: Panelists discuss current pension issues and ways in which the modeling process can be used to assist plan sponsors in addressing those issues. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 1.

Description: This article discusses the need for a sophisticated modeling system capable of analyzing the impact of the variables present in pension plan projections and providing management with information which it may act upon.

Description: Panelists discuss new non-traditional investments, innovative assets and investment-management techniques, and their applications. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 2.

Description: Panelists discuss new methods, ideas, and approaches to products designed to provide adequate compensation to agents under new compensation arrangements and appropriate profits for insurers, while maintaining customer values. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 2.

Description: The subject of this paper is a financial model for pension planning purposes. The focus of the model is from an individual's point of view with the idea to assist him/her in planning for a financially secure retirement income. The model is dynamic and stochastic, operates in nominal and real terms, and goes beyond the age of retirement. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1981, Vol. 1.

Description: These notes are a follow-up to the paper 'Introduction to the Dynamics of Pension Funding' by the same authors and published in Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1976, Vol. 28. The purpose of that paper was to provide an introduction to mathematical principles applicable to pension funding under dynamic conditions of population growth, inflation, and automatic adjustment of benefits. The first note discusses a general contribution formula and a number of special cases and modifications. The second note concerns aggregate cost funding when the actuary uses assumptions about cost factors which differ consistently from cost experience. The final note concerns the variation of the annuity unit under a variable annuity program patterned after the plan employed by the College Retirement Equities Fund [CREF]. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1981, Vol. 1.

Description: This article is a review and discussion of the 1976 “Report of the Consultant Panel on Social Security to the United States Congressional Research Service.” The report contains the results of another government-initiated study of the OASDI system which puts forth a second solution to a problem first publicly identified by the 1975 Advisory Council on Social Security, a problem which has come to be known as the “decoupling issue.” Because the solution proposed by the actuaries and economists making up this consultant panel is significantly different from that of the Advisory Council, this report has inspired some degree of friendly debate among actuaries and others interested in the technicalities of the OASDI benefit formula. Panel members are Peter A. Diamond, James C. Hickman, Ernest J. Moorhead, and William C. Hsiao, Chairman.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to mathematical principles applicable to pension funding under dynamic conditions of population growth, inflation, and automatic adjustment of benefits. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1976, Vol. 28.

Description: This paper presents a theoretical treatment of the determination of the cost of vesting by a method not hitherto demonstrated to the Society. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1966, Vol. 18, Pt. 1, No. 52.