Description: The article describes the key components of actuarial model, leading practices in designing them, and characteristics of well-built models.

Description: Slides from a panel discussion session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 Discussion of the basics of actuarial appraisals: Panelists discussed the reasons to perform an actuarial appraisal, the processes involved, issues that should be addressed and assumption development.

Description: A recent Society of Actuaries study calculates safety and stability for current Long Term Care Insurance premiums.

Description: Research report sponsored by SOA to model and compare projected costs of different proposals for a Medicare prescription drug coverage plan. 3 types of costs are studied: net benefit cost estimates per member per month, continuance table data, and projected annual costs to the government over 10 years for two selected plan designs.

Description: An economic analysis of bariatric surgery and health care costs supports the case for health plans to cover these procedures.

Description: A study of disability experience examines cost burden and degree of disability, and how these measures vary across different subpopulations. This article summarizes a presentation given at the Society of Actuaries’ Living to 100: Survival to Advanced Ages International Symposium held on Jan. 7–9, 2008 in Orlando, Florida. An abstract of the author's paper was presented in the September 2008 issue of Long-Term Care News.

Description: A closer look at family tier factor rating assumptions, and how well they reflect actual claim cost data.

Description: From a session at the 2002 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, September 19–20, 2002 Session topics included model hierarchy, statistical deterministic and stochastic models, real-life situations, how to organize a model effectively, structuring the model to fit the project or report data, sources/integrity techniques documentation, and constraints and limitations on models.

Description: This paper addresses rainfall insurance using financial derivatives. Usual modeling is done for temperature related products. The authors gathered rainfall data in Mexico City over a period of five decades. This showed that the time series data is stationary and normally distributed. Therefore, the authors applied a closed-form solution to value swaps, calls and puts, with and without limits. The model can be used for practical purpose of pricing rainfall derivatives. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2006.

Description: Forty-one years of catastrophe loss data by state are used in this study to produce a model for rating catastrophe covers for insurers in any region of the Continental United States. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.