Description: Article Society Seminars by Adams in The Actuary, February 1979, Volume 13, Number 2

Description: This article is a discussion of a measure of life insurance policy cost which the author refers to as “aggregate administrative cost ratio,” based on figures from the life insurance companies’ annual statements filed with state insurance commissioners. The article provides the formulas for calculation and demonstrates how the cost ratios can be a useful tool for an individual considering the purchase of life insurance.

Description: Article The 1979 Annual Report of the Trustees Of the U.S. Social Security Programs by Bartlett in The Actuary, June 1979, Volume 13, Number 6

Description: Article AERF in The Actuary, May 1979, Volume 13, Number 5

Description: The author of this article notes that “valuing pension or long-term disability plans with Social Security offsets generally requires some assumptions about the future course of the wage base and benefit formula,” and “the usual approach is to select annual percentage increases for these two variables which relate reasonably and well to the valuation salary scale, and then to project Social Security on that basis.” The author goes on to discuss how the actuary and plan sponsor can be comfortable with a particular choice of parameters, given that “costs can be very sensitive to the Social Security projection and recent history offers little guidance.”

Description: This article is a discussion of a study released in June 1976 by the New York Insurance Department, entitled “Disability Income Insurance – Cost Differentials between Men and Women.” The author of this article notes that “due to charges by various groups of discrimination in the underwriting and establishing of premium rates for individual disability income insurance, the results of this study have been eagerly awaited by many segments of the insurance industry. Fears of substantiating uni-sex rates were unfounded as the results of the study generally conformed to those of the Society of Actuaries which the industry has relied on to a great extent in the past.”

Description: Insurance companies use derivatives to manage and mitigate risks that are inherent in their investment or liability portfolios, including traditional asset/liability matching, dynamic hedging and static hedging. The authors explore how Solvency II will influence life insurers’ hedging strategies.

Description: This article is a review and summary of the final volume in the series of Vital and Health Statistics Monographs initiated by the late Mortimer Spiegelman, FSA, in 1958. This final volume analyzes mortality and morbidity trends since the beginning of the century.

Description: The article explores ways that legislative policy options that focus on both trust fund solvency and benefit adequacy may be implemented to bring about Social Security solvency and sustainability.

Description: Actuaries can serve an important role by exploring modeling and data analysis techniques to discover predictive patterns and relationships.