Description: Family caregivers are a critical link in providing long-term services and supports (LTSS), but they have significant unmet needs. To better support family caregivers, Congress authorized the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, & Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act in 2018 and created the RAISE Family Caregiving Advisory Council. The Council identified recommendations to serve as the backbone of a national strategy to improve the physical, emotional and financial well-being of family caregivers. A new report, "Asking Directions: Mapping a Course to Support Family Caregivers," identifies specific actions across a variety of players for meeting the Council’s recommendations. It summarizes insights from a year’s worth of strategy sessions and interviews with representatives of over 100 organizations. The report brings together thoughts on best practices and the most critical action steps from national and state organizations, county health providers, the direct care workforce, large and small employers, aging and disability organizations, faith-based groups, respite care providers and more. This article summarizes the research methods and key findings of the report and the work conducted by the Leading Age LTSS Center @UMass Boston and Community Catalyst’s Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation.

Description: After research involving auto insurance is retracted due to fraud, I revisit my own book review and unskeptical quoting of that now-debunked research. A lesson in ASOP 23, on Data Quality, ensues, as it seems data in the research was falsified. There is also a lesson in ASOP 56, Modeling, which includes aspects of relying on outside experts for model input. At the end of it all, the value of our actuarial professional standards, in light of other professions seemingly having no standards (or no serious repercussions for breaching said standards), shines through. Also, be skeptical of 'one simple trick' approaches to transform the insurance industry.

Description: Can the global reinsurance market emerge from its recent consistent underperformance and grasp the opportunity to build back a better more model that meets the demands of society as a whole as well as its traditional stakeholders

Description: Discussion of the challenges actuaries face in selecting an interest rate for the purpose of calculating Withdrawal Liability for a Multiemployer pension fund in the US. Recent court cases are referenced.

Description: Every year since 1996, SCOR has rewarded the best academic work in the field of actuarial science with annual prizes in several countries throughout the world. These prizes are designed to promote the development of actuarial science, to encourage research in this field, and to contribute to the improvement of risk knowledge and management. The SCOR Actuarial Awards are recognized in the insurance and reinsurance industries as a mark of excellence. The Actuarial Awards in France are supported by the SCOR Corporate Foundation for Science. The SCOR Actuarial Awards juries are composed of internationally recognized researchers and insurance, reinsurance and finance professionals. The winners are selected for their command of actuarial concepts, the quality of their analytical methods, and the originality of their research in terms of scientific advances and potential practical applications to the world of risk management. In 2021, SCOR presented Actuarial Awards in five countries around the world: Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.

Description: This is a perspective of the upcoming year from the view of the Chair of the Council of the TaxationSection. Following the challenges from the past year and since the arrival of the pandemic, I discussed how we will adapt to this new virtual or hybrid world and how the Taxation Section will continue to offer material to its members.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s new report examines how inland flood risk and loss may change across the U.S. in the future because of climate change. The AIR Inland Flood Model for the U.S. and the AIR Hurricane Model for the U.S. were used to evaluate how changes in flooding will impact insurable losses in the future.

Description: In Memory of William “Bill” Kenney, FSA

Description: The actuarial profession is changing rapidly and the skills needed to be successful are also changing. In this session, we will debate key topics and questions, such as: What is the predominant future career path for actuaries? Specialists or generalists? Does the actuarial profession have a meaningful value prop outside our core domains e.g. insurance? What skills are needed for the actuary of the future? What’s the best approach to improve actuarial storytelling to non-actuarial audiences? What’s the role of actuaries to managing and predicting emerging trends and assumptions? What is the role of actuaries in relation to development and ownership of advanced modeling? Is the future actuarial profession smaller/larger than it is today? In either case, how does it differ from today in terms of make-up, deployment, function, purpose, value add, etc.?

Description: The Society of Actuaries released research in 2007, performed by Jim Toole, that develops a model for a U.S. individual life insurance company to consider its potential liability exposure as a result of a pandemic. Sponsored by the Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committee, this paper updates several model assumptions including mortality in light of COVID-19.