Description: Financial illiteracy has been identified as a major obstacle to effective retirement planning for Americans. Anna Rappaport’s article provides actuaries with helpful ideas about ways to make the public more aware of the increasing need for financial literacy and some of the resources currently available to help individuals.

Description: The impact of bond default risk on retirement benefit obligations describes how the probability default on a bond is similar to the probability of death for an annuitant. Bonds are used to cash flow match retirement obligations cash flows to funding from bond. Just as the probability of non-payment happens on the liability side, we can do the same with selected bonds. The end result may be an adjustment to the discount rates used.

Description: Chronically low interest rates are a reflection of macroeconomic trends. Care must be exercised in making assumptions regarding mean reversion.

Description: Article from the Pension Section News, June 2000, on the simple logic of health care inflation. This article is reprinted with permission and ran in the April 2000 issue of Health Section News.