Description: While a rising sea helps all ships, the insurance industry is a ship that hasn't seen much water in the past decade. Examine valuation and product management considerations in a high interest rate environment

Description: Statutory and GAAP metrics are useful for regulators, investors, and other external parties who require a consistent basis for viewing snapshots of companies at a point in time, however, their uses are more limited for managers who are tasked with making strategic decisions. Many insurers are turning to internally developed metrics such as value of new business (VNB) for better profitability insights at the point of sale and to understand how new business profitability changes over time. By leveraging existing models and reporting processes, insurers can reduce the additional effort involved, applying VNB toward applications such as pricing, capital allocation, and risk management. Discuss key considerations for developing and using VNB. Begin with a brief overview of VNB, including how VNB addresses specific shortcomings of Stat and GAAP. Next, discuss applications of VNB for life and annuity business and conclude with some implementation case studies.

Description: There is a clear consumer need for long-term care (LTC) coverage. Combo life/LTC products sought to meet that need when stand-alone LTC coverages became more difficult and more expensive to get. Combo life/LTC are built to be more sustainable, allowing for more alignment of interests between the policyholder and insurer. However, combo life/LTC are typically on a universa life (UL) chassis with extensive secondary guarantees, and several were withdrawn from the market in the recent past because of very low interest rates. A couple of carriers have used the variable UL chassis which are still in market. Interest rates have also risen dramatically. The opportunity may be present for innovation in this area that leads to sustainable products. Join the conversation as experts in this area discuss the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in developing and marketing these products.

Description: Come prepared for an engaging workshop where you will have the opportunity to share thoughts on and work through a variety of questions concerning how actuaries must adapt to account for newer underwriting and distribution practices. Seating will be limited for this workshop focused on life actuaries who price and set assumptions for products impacted by new underwriting tools and processes such as accelerated underwriting (AU) or direct-to-consumer (DTC) distribution.

Description: There are many underwriting issues being discussed in states that challenge how information is used in the underwriting process. Learn more about a variety of rules and regulations, including Colorado's proposed regulation requiring a governance and risk management framework for life insurance carriers' use of external consumer data and information sources, as well as algorithms and predictive models using such data. Recent proposals are more far-reaching than existing requirements in states that have put up guardrails for the use of new data sets and algorithms, especially for underwriting. Listen in as experts discuss the potential issues and implications of this and other proposed regulations.

Description: Go over how the actuarial processes have changed over the past 10+ years with the move to PBR, US GAAP LDTI, IFRS 17 and other emerging requirements.

Description: Large SEC US GAAP filers implemented LDTI 1/1/2023. Other insurance companies have until 1/1/2025. Learn more about those companies with a 2025 implementation date. What do these companies need to know? What can be learned from the 2023 implementers? What are the biggest hurtles to implementation?

Description: At the end of December 2020, Congress enacted the Consolidated Appropriates Act, 2021, which included revisions to Section 7702. Effective for policies issued after December 31, 2020, the fixed 4% and 6% minimum annual effective rates under these tests were changed to refer to a market-based rate called the “insurance interest rate”. For contracts issued in 2021, the insurance rate was set to 2% - defined as the lower of the Section 7702 applicable federal interest rate based on the 60-month period ending December 2019 (2%) and the Section 7702 valuation interest rate in effect for 2020 (3.5%). This reduction in the rates used for compliance testing required significant product, operational, and technology changes for companies to reach product compliance. After 2021, the insurance interest rate is redetermined annually with a minimum change floor.

Description: Indexed Universal Life ('IUL') has commanded a substantial share of life insurance sales since it was first introduced nearly 25 years ago. Even today, despite rising interest rates, IUL remains popular. It was one of the only products whose sales grew in 2022. Today's IUL products bear only passing resemblance to those offered when the product was first introduced, with updates to product design driven by regulatory and economic changes.

Description: Stay current with the latest mortality trends and practices in this wide-ranging session, covering research performed by the SOA and their collaborators, including recent research from the SOA's Individual Life Experience Committee. Topics will include mortality improvement, mortality by socioeconomic category, cause of death analysis, and insurance company life experience quintile analysis.