Description: This article highlights features of the SOA's Regulatory Web Resource. The intent is to encourage greater use of the Resource among section members.

Description: Continues the look from previous articles at unlocking of traditional contract valuation assumptions, this time examining the effects of lapses.

Description: This article summarizes current regulatory activity discussed at the Spring 2009 meetings of the N.A.I.C. and the National Council of Insurance Legislators.

Description: This article discusses the reservations small companies may have about the Principles Based Valuation proposal. Instead of prescribed methods, assumptions, and tables for statutory reserves, they would be computed based on actuarial judgment in accordance with standards of practice. of practice.

Description: On June 17, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service published Final Regulations implementing changes to loss reserve discounting under section 846 of the Internal Revenue Code made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This note addresses changes made in the Final Regulations, particularly modification of rules for determining the interest rate used for discounting, in response to comments from taxpayers on the proposed regulations.

Description: A research paper that outlines a seamless method of deriving assumptions for modern reserving and solvency capital requirements from a company’s own data.

Description: The Revenue Act of 1987 amended section 807d2B of the Internal Revenue Code. It established the interest rate used in the calculation of tax reserves to be the greater of the applicable federal interest rate or the prevailing maximum statutory valuation rate for the contract’s calendar year of issue. The amendment is effective for contracts issued in tax years beginning after December 31, 1987. This document shows all the applicable federal interest rates from 1998 - 2009.

Description: In November 2020 the Life Actuarial (A) Task Force unanimously passed APF 2020-08 which adds a third permissible method in the Valuation Manual to determine company experience mortality rates. This article describes the three methods

Description: S&P reissued a second Request for Comment (RFC) in May 2023 that proposed changes to their insurer capital adequacy methodology and assumptions, and suggested these proposed changes may become effective at the end of 2023. This paper is to highlight the notable changes between the current capital model criteria and the proposed model. We also discuss major changes from the first RFC and the second RFC, as well as several key items that still require enhanced guidance and clarification. Our analysis is based on information gathered from S&P's public comments, conversations with industry participants, and publications released by S&P Global as of July 2023 when this paper was written. Most U.S. life insurers are rated by S&P using their U.S. Life Statutory Capital model, while other insurers use the GAAP/IFRS Capital Model. Statutory financials will remain the starting point for U.S. life insurers under the proposed model, however there will be additional adjustments made to these numbers in an effort to create consistency and comparability with other accounting and solvency regimes.

Description: Results of a company practice survey is presented. Among the areas to be addressed include the structure of accelerated underwriting programs, how programs are monitored, how accelerated underwritten business is performing relative to expectations, and how companies are considering accelerated underwriting cohorts in the context of VM-20 assumption setting.