Description: This report explains the concept and construction of the Market Consistent Embedded Value (MCEV) measure, as well as its usefulness as a profit/risk measure relative to other profit/risk measures currently used by insurance companies for various products. The knowledge from this research will assist actuaries, corporate leadaers, risk management professionals and others in understanding, implementing and comparing MCEV to current risk assessment tools utilized by insurance companies.

Description: The American Academy of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries (SOA) have joined resources to manage the economic scenario generators used in regulatory reserve and capital calculations.

Description: This is the User's Guide that accompanies the Inflation Generator Excel spreadsheet which is associated with the research report entitled 'The Effect of Deflation or High Inflation on the Insurance Industry.'

Description: The author suggests that true actuarial method is a blend of all three modes of thinking, clinical, statistical and heuristic, and using all three early in our processes will make us smarter modelers. From The Actuary, February 2012, Volume 9, Issue 1.

Description: This presentation discusses a process for determining the minimum reinsurance retention level consistent with defined parameters. The conclusions reached were: 1. Under PDS dependence, optimal reinsurance strategy is multivariate stop loss form. 2. Explicit solutions could be derived in certain bivariate model. 3. Binding and unbinding constraints are equivalent. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2012, Vol. 1.

Description: This presentation provided an analysis of investment guarantees in equity-linked products. There was an overview of the data and models in use. In addition an actuarial approach to left-tail analysis was presented as well as a dynamic hedging approach. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2012, Vol. 1.

Description: Actuarial models have always been an important tool for helping companies project future results and understand risks. As complex models have started to become critical components of the reporting and compliance processes, however, models have vaulted to new levels of importance—and of scrutiny. This has raised everyone’s interest in the management of models, and by implication, in their ability to control the inherent model risk. From Small Talk Newsletter, Issue 37, January 2012.

Description: This article argues that wealth managers should advocate dynamic spending in proportion to survival probabilities, adjusted up for exogenous pension income and down for longevity risk aversion. The authors criticize the rule of thumb of spending a fixed 'x' percent of assets for retirement planning purposes.

Description: This article discusses the importance of refining projected tax cash flows when making actuarial projections. It addresses specifically operating loss deductions, net operating loss carrybacks and carryforwards, capital coss carrybacks and carryforwards, cost basis of invested assets, tax DAC, tax complications caused by reinsurance and deferred taxes.

Description: The Pension Section is pleased to make available Part I of a two-part research paper exploring embedded options in pension plans. Part I includes a catalogue of embedded options in pension plans and the results of a related survey of pension practitioners. The paper was written by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.

Description: Important tools used in property & casualty P&C insurance—predictive modeling and data mining—can be applied to more effectively model policyholder behavior risks in variable annuity VA contracts. In this article, a case study is used to demonstrate how a predictive modeling approach can improve upon traditional methods used to model VA lapse behavior.

Description: The author discusses expectations for incoming actuarial science students, emphasizing that a solid grasp of algebra and traditional mathematical skills is not enough. In addition, the author states that today’s business environment dictates that students be well versed and that their backgrounds include familiarity with complexity science.

Description: The author explains how he used judgmental forecasting techniques to develop a dynamic lapse assumption. He defines the techniques and provides readers with a step-by-step process.

Description: Discusses useful resources for actuaries available on the Web.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This study investigates whether simulation-based models can be used to predict liquidity risk for banks, which must comply with Basel III by January 2015. The paper looks at the process of developing a measurement framework using Black-Scholes and Merton’s asset-based models to measure liquidity risk.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This paper uses a case-study research design looking at two companies: Infosys and Rolls-Royce Corp. The goal of the research is to develop an explanation of how ERM brings about the strategic implications or its “promise” as it is popularly known in the ERM circle. The influential factors and how they are linked to the ERM process of achieving strategic implications are highlighted.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This paper starts by defining and discussing the nature of risk and its primary relationship to capital preservation. The paper then continues with a guide for implementing a company’s risk appetite statement for a variable annuity product.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This paper explores cognitive and behavioral theories that can be applied to explain why emerging risk is often overlooked, downplayed or ignored. It also proposes an innovative framework for managing emerging risk within an overall enterprise risk management program.

Description: 2011 SOA Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. The stated purpose of this paper is to consider whether a more comprehensive and timely measurement framework for risk exposure is now needed and to examine one possible approach. This paper proposes a new approach to risk measurement that, along with capital measurement and more rigorous oversight, will allow banks an ability to manage risk.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This is the abstract of the entitled paper.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This paper highlights the impact that a change in conditional data would have on a variety of risk assessment models, with specific emphasis on investment forecasting.

Description: Presented at the Living to 100 Symposium, January 2011. Long-term care LTC insurance is frequently not covered by national social insurance programs. When costs are expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product, the future burden of financing LTC would not lead to unbearable tax levels and is not particularly large in comparison to the projected costs for pensions and health care. After identifying the breadth of definitions of LTC needs, it is argued that LTC is an insurable risk. The paper concludes that LTC social insurance is affordable in developed countries.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 symposium, January 2011. This paper investigates dynamic properties of age trajectories of physiological indices and their effects on mortality risk and longevity using longitudinal data on more than 5,000 individuals collected in biannual examinations of the Framingham Heart Study original age group during about 50 subsequent years of follow up.

Description: This is the Introductory Study Note for the Society of Actuaries Group and Health-Company/Sponsor Perspective examination for Spring 2012 that will be given on Friday, April 27th, from 8:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.

Description: This is the Introductory Study Note for the Society of Actuaries Advanced Finance/Enterprise Risk Management examination for Spring 2012 that will be given on Friday, April 27th, from 8:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.

Description: Collection of essays received in response to the “Systemic Risk, Financial Reform and Moving Forward from the Financial Crisis” call for essays.

Description: The Policyholder Behavior in the Tail Risk Management Section Working Group issued its fifth survey to gather the range of assumptions actuaries use in pricing, reserving, and risk management of minimum guarantees on Variable Annuity products, such as death benefits, income benefits, withdrawal benefits and maturity benefits.

Description: In this article, the author discusses the capital shortfall an insurer faces because of the longevity risk on immediate annuities.

Description: This report describes the results of a survey on reflecting risk in pricing. The survey expands on one conducted in 2003 and was expanded to include life, health, P&C, and non-North American insurance companies.

Description: A summary of a scientific paper written to address the differences and similarities between the option pricing method now more commonly known as fair valuation and the actuarial appraisal method.

Description: Describes Web 2.0 and discusses its benefits.

Description: This abstract describes a paper that improves upon current multivariate statistical models for predicting the pre-payment rate of reverse mortgages, which are heavily data-driven. The prosposed model extends a semi-Markovian joint-life mortality model to incorporate three main termination modes of reverse mortgages: death, long-term care LTC entry, and non-health related termination.

Description: Paper that explores some characteristics of pension plans that affect the type and amount of investment risk a government-sponsored pension plan can afford.

Description: Discusses the graphics capabilities of the computer language R.

Description: Description of the increased gamma of the liabilities of a portfolio of variable annuities. Discussion of the sensitivity of gamma due to changes in policyholder behavior.

Description: February 2010 Supplement to the Taxation Section newsletter, Taxing Times. Extensive discussion of the issues in computing statutory and tax reserves for annuities under VA CARVM.

Description: A comprehensive look at Actuarial Guideline 43 VA CARVM. This article examines the statutory and tax implications of AG 43 for the determination of reserves for annuity writers.

Description: This series of articles provides an in-depth look at the activities of the SOA in 2009.

Description: A research report that first defines ERM and provides the results of an applicable literature search with hyperlinks and then describes the current state of Enterprise Risk Management practices for health organizations. Areas covered: 1. Operational Risks. 2. Balance sheet risks. 3. Pricing discipline. 4. Asset risks. 5. Learnings. 6. Emerging risks.

Description: This article explains the changes made to the Expanding Horizons Newsletter.

Description: This report presents the results of a survey conducted in August of 2008 on foreign travel underwriting practices of reinsurance companies.

Description: Current risk management approaches for variable annuity business are not working very well in today's market turmoil.

Description: This article provides a brief introduction to forecasting methods that are potentially relevant to actuarial work.

Description: The attached report presents the results of a survey conducted by the Society of Actuaries Mortality and Underwriting Survey Committee in July of 2008 under the following categories: 1. Modeling Mortality Risk. 2. Use of Reinsurance to Manage Mortality. 3. Retention / Large Case Management. 4. Catastrophe Reinsurance. 5. Mortality Concentration of Risk. 6. Catastrophic Bonds.

Description: The management of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America Guardian decided during 2006 to perform an economic capital EC analysis, with results to be delivered in the spring of 2007. A second generation EC analysis EC 2.0 was conducted from fall 2007 through spring 2008. This article describes EC 2.0.

Description: This article provides an overview of the commonly used structural credit risk modeling approach that is less familiar to the actuarial community.

Description: This article discusses the management and testing of spreadsheets.

Description: This paper looks at the problem of valuing and managing the ALM risks associated with insurance liabilities that are too long to be matched by available investments. Two options were explored and the paper concludes by arguing that the Static Control Model leads to more useful ALM strategies for long liabilities.

Description: This paper discusses some of the models used to quantify risk, note some areas where improvements in standard methods are needed, and in some cases suggest alternative approaches for risks in Property and Casualty Insurance and Life Insurance.

Description: This paper focuses on business risks rather than market, credit and operational risks. The author proposes a bottom-up approach for modelling and measuring business risk where the dynamic of the underlying earnings is described in a continuous-time model.

Description: This paper explains the development of the credit derivative market, describes the most common types of credit derivatives, discusses how insurers can and do use these instruments and explains the role they played in the financial market turmoil of 2008.

Description: This article provides the reader with some insights regarding tax planning under the new required methodology.

Description: Report summarizing the results of the 2009 Policyholder Behavior in the Tail working group with respect to UL policies with Secondary Guarantees Survey.

Description: This article gives a listing of outside vendors and resources for supporting a small office. Resources include IT support, organizations, professional services, and internet resources.

Description: This is a report on the PBITT Working Group's fourth survey to gather the assumptions actuaries use in pricing, reserving, and risk management of minimum guarantees on Variable Annuity products, such as death benefits, income benefits, withdrawal benefits and maturity benefits.

Description: The research investigates the challenges associated with determining a “fair value” assessment for embedded options in two product types and incorporates the process into product pricing and liability valuation

Description: This article aimed to make Liability Driven Investing LDI more accessible by providing a simple definition and by showing how plans of different sizes and circumstances may adopt an appropriate LDI approach.

Description: Attitudes on strategy and risk in reinsurance vary according to specific environmental circumstances for most companies. This article is an extract from the 2007 surveys in the U.S. market.

Description: Automobile insurers classify the risks that they underwrite in order to subdivide the portfolio into classes of risks with similar profiles. While some insurers may have sufficient historical data, several others may not have significant volume of experience data in order to produce reliable claims predictions to help enhance their risk classification systems. A database containing a pooled experience of several insurers thereby helps to produce a more fair, reliable, and equitable premium structure for all risks concerned. This paper uses multilevel models to analyze the data on claim counts provided by the General Insurance Association of Singapore, an organization consisting of most of the general insurers in Singapore. The multilevel nature of the data is due to the following: a certain vehicle is observed over a period of years and is insured by a particular insurance company under a certain 'fleet' policy. The authors show how intercompany data lead to a priori premiums and a posteriori corrections to these initial premiums. Specific focus is made in understanding the intercompany effects using various count distribution models [Poisson, negative binomial, zero–inflated and hurdle Poisson]. The performance of these various models is compared the authors also investigate how to use the historical claims of a company, fleet and/or vehicle in order to correct for the premium initially set.

Description: Milliman, Inc. recently conducted a comprehensive survey of leading UL insurers to discover current dynamics of the UL market. The scope of the survey included UL with secondary guarantees ULSG, cash accumulation UL, current assumption UL, and indexed UL.

Description: From June 11 through August 3, 2007, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [UIUC] hosted a National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates on the topic 'Stochastic Modeling in Actuarial Science and Financial Mathematics.' This Experience, provided to 6 undergraduate mathematics students from universities across the United States, was directed by Professor Rick Gorvett, the Director of the UIUC Actuarial Science Program. This report summarizes the program and describes the research projects undertaken.

Description: This paper shows the application of a threshold strategy on the surplus level of an insurance risk model results in a process that can be analyzed as a doubly infinite Markov chain with finite blocks. The resulting procedures are then used to calculate the probability distributions for time of ruin, the surplus immediately prior to ruin, and the deficit at ruin. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2008, Vol.1.

Description: Article discusses how to set your goals by asking 2 questions 1What do I want? and 2 What is important to me? These questions will help you to set your goals and make these goals more achievable.

Description: Milliman, Inc. Milliman was retained by the Society of Actuaries SOA to perform certain actuarial analyses with respect to the Z-Factor methodology under a principles-based approach PBA to statutory reserve and capital. Under PBA, the Z-Factor is a measure of margin in excess of the best estimate assumptions embedded in the statutory reserves of a life insurance product or block of business.

Description: A research project with the Society of Actuaries on interest rate hedging on traditional life and health insurance.

Description: The article discusses how strategic planning and strategic risk management are intertwined.

Description: For insurance companies, modeling the future values of assets and their interactions is useful for setting up asset strategies and managing reserves for liabilities. This paper evaluates the ability of Wilkie’s stochastic investment models to predict Toronto Stock Exchange [TSX] price index yield. In the Wilkie Model, correlated econometric indices are modeled through a cascade structure.

Description: U.K. life insurers writing participating business are required by the Financial Services Authority to value their assets and liabilities on a market-consistent basis. The purpose of this paper is to: • Explain the valuation approach based on market-consistent values and its rationale. • Set out the issues faced by life insurers in implementing the regime. • Explain how insurers addressed these issues. • Explain the importance of the modeling techniques they used.

Description: This research report study uses the property/liability insurance industry as a research sample to examine how risk management, financial management, and capital management are related to each another. This allows reflecting such relationships in: 1. the managerial decisions in the choice of derivative and reinsurance use. 2. the allocation of asset risks. 3. the determination of underwriting activities as well as liabiity risks. 4. the adequacy of capital levels.

Description: Irish actuary and professor explains his hypothesis that actuaries, as practitioners, are reluctant to adopt the theories of financial economists unless the models on which the theories are based fit the actual data the actuaries have.

Description: This article describes how insurers can expand the reach of their efforts with regard to Economic Capital EC into the broader enterprise risk management process. Some experts contend that can be done by shifting the focus towards value. EC has the potential to shed new light on valuable opportunities for insurers.

Description: This article provides key insights and data samples about various approaches to pension investing. Article from Risk and Rewards, August 2006, Issue No. 48.

Description: This paper discusses a theoretical framework for Enterprise Risk Management, risk dynamics within property-casualty insurance companies, empirical findings on widely used risk models, and examples of effective risk models.

Description: The thrust of this article is that while ERM starts out as a compliance and corporate governance tool, well managed companies use ERM as a strategic tool that will help them increase shareholder value. To do so requires a synthesis of the actuarial techniques of insurance and the capital markets perspectives of corporate finance.

Description: In this article, the author presents a case for using a Risk Return On Capital approach as a way to integrate desirable properties of the Economic Value Added approach and the Return On Risk-Adjusted Capital approach. The EVA approach has a shortcoming in that is does not reflect rating agency capital. The RORAC is computed as the ratio of expected total underwriting return to allocated risk capital, and represents the expected return for both benign and potentially consumptive usage of capital. The RROC approach measures returns after reflecting the mean rental cost of rating agency capital. Returns that are a reward for exposing capital to risk of loss are measured after reflecting the cost of carrying capital to support premium written and loss reserves.