Description: Advice for introverts about marketing your business.

Description: A discussion of Actuarial Aspects of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley

Description: The article contemplates whether there is heightened sensitivity towards how investment activity is portrayed and described.

Description: Overview of Medicare's 1979 financial projections under optimistic, pessimistic, and intermediate assumptions, for the Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance programs.

Description: The author identifies miscommunication challenges that may exist in the workplace, including misunderstandings and communication mishaps, assumption of motive, and relational tension, and suggests clarifying conversation as a way to address these challenges.

Description: The article is Part 1 of two articles that provide a case study for the development of a profitability and risk dashboard. The sample dashboard provides distilled information regarding actual to expected (A/E) ratios for key risks, agent quality scores and customer value scores. The dashboard would also provide the value of new business written, surplus strain, debit balances, and expected losses on debit balances at different levels, down to the agent level. A product mix index is provided, together with visual comparisons of key metrics to the company's business plan. The Part 2 article will add information to the dashboard regarding risk margins, target capital, and company value.

Description: This is an article about the sales process for long-term care insurance.

Description: This article poses a hypothetical workplace dilemma. Solutions and feedback are presented in the next issue. From the October 2010 issue of Stepping Stones.

Description: The article discusses the sustainability of the ACA individual market from a public entitlement standpoint. A key point of measuring sustainability is the reliance on market forces rather than federal budget constraints. The article explains why an actuarial viewpoint of sustainability is necessary to a greater extent than other public assistance and social insurance programs. The article challenges actuaries to be a bold, objective voice in a space that is full of opinionated but often uninformed viewpoints.

Description: A warning about keeping top management fully and clearly informed about enterprise risk assessments, as illustrated by some actual and fictional stories.