Description: A call for essays issued by the SOA Health and Long Term Care Sections on the visions for the future of the U.S. health care system.

Description: This paper addresses the financial risk of long-term care by examining the use of reverse mortgages to help impaired elders continue to live at home.

Description: This paper proposes, for long-term care, a new funding model in which social insurance and private insurance will pay for the bulk of the costs, supplemented by personal payment. If these sources fail, public welfare will serve as a safety net.

Description: Abstract: This research paper assesses the adequacy of the combination of elder care and support programs in six developed countries. The programs considered are social security (retirement income), health care and long-term care, and four family compositions are considered to make the assessment. The paper discusses the difficulties of defining adequacy. The fuzzy set methodology of Ragin (2000) is used to label the level of adequacy of the combined programs. This is the first time this methodology has been applied to this problem. The paper contributes to research in the social sciences by combining quantitative and qualitative results. It finds that the combined programs are: often inadequate in England and the United States; not adequate or inadequate in Canada; and mainly adequate in France, Germany and Sweden. Three policy recommendations, which would increase the likelihood of benefit adequacy, are made.

Description: Discussant comments for the 2009 Housing Wealth monograph paper, “Home Equity and At-Need Annuities—A Dynamic Long-Term Care Funding Duo”. The author finds that the ideas discussed in this paper should stimulate more thinking about financial products and public sector programs and how they can better serve older homeowners.

Description: Report on the proceedings of the 2010 Long Term Care Think Tank Session, whose goals were to discuss the major issues and challenges facing the LTC insurance industry, and to formulate action items and initiatives to help the industry move ahead. Focus was on understanding the needs & affordability capabilities of different market segments, the limited variety of product designs, shrinking distribution force, regulation and public policy, implications of the CLASS Act, and ideas for educating consumers and marketing products.

Description: Reinsurance reduces the required capital of the primary insurer but increases that of the reinsurer. Capital is costly. All capital costs, including that of the insurer and the reinsurer, are ultimately borne by primary policyholders. Reducing the total capital of insurers and reinsurers brings down the total capital cost and the total primary policy premium. A reinsurance arrangement is considered optimal—if it minimizes the total required capital. This optimal reinsurance is an attracting equilibrium under price competition. Evidence suggests an inverse relationship between the total required capital and the correlation between the losses held by different insurers and reinsurers. Examples are constructed to examine this and other properties of the optimal reinsurance.

Description: Delinquency rates are closely related to the economic conditions and can be analyzed using measures of economic growth and stability. In an attempt to predict the delinquency rate for the health care equipment financial industry, we investigated the relationship between delinquency rate and key macroeconomic variables for the period from 1998 to 2008. The study reveals that the tightening credit standards and unemployment rate are the key macroeconomic indicators influencing the delinquency rate. The analysis further helps in arriving at a trigger to monitor the delinquency rate based on the macroeconomic indicators, thus enabling proactive portfolio management. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: A glossary of terms.

Description: A call for essays issued by the SOA Health and Long Term Care Sections on the visions for the future of the U.S. health care system.