Description: Provides an update, as of September 2022, on Financial Reporting Section sponsored research projects in process and those recently completed.

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: Column from the chairperson of the SOA's Financial Reporting Section describing the research and webcasts available to section members.

Description: Pandemic impact on continuing education. Financial Reporting Section and Community Engagement. US GAAP textbook update for LDTI. IFRI textbook update for amendments.

Description: Description of the mathematics involved when looking at low probability events within a company from the perspective of the C-Suite. The accumulation of small probability events leads to a much higher probability of at least one of them happening in a given period.

Description: In 2018, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) adopted significant revisions to the U.S. GAAP insurance accounting literature, via Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2018-12. The title of ASU 2018-12 is “Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts,” and as a result a common acronym for ASU 2018-12 is LDTI (long-duration targeted improvements).

Description: This study is an update of a 2015 study that illustrates the differences that occur when measurement is made under different accounting bases. The observations come from research performed on two products (term life insurance and universal life insurance with secondary guarantees.

Description: A description and status update on all recent research reports sponsored by the Financial Reporting Section.

Description: A call for proposals for research projects exploring recent insurance product innovations and their impacts on the industry. It outlines the background, purpose, objectives, proposal requirements, selection process, submission details, conditions, and conflict of interest disclosures.

Description: GAAP's elimination of gross profit as a basis for amortization of deferred acquisition costs enables the accounting for reinsurance of universal life contracts to better reflect the economic protection provided by reinsurance. It also makes it easier to assess the effectiveness of different techniques. Building on the analysis of an earlier article, "A Fresh Look at Accounting for Reinsurance of Universal Life," this article presents a practical approach to estimating the ineffectiveness of several existing techniques at accounting for the economic protection provided by reinsurance. The article ends with a summary of what a company might do to improve the effectiveness of its reinsurance accounting.