Description: This article is an update, as of March 2019, on Financial Reporting Section sponsored projects in process and those recently completed.

Description: This article summarizes the key changes to VM-31 requirements in the 2020 version of the Valuation Manual for both life and variable annuities, and compares and contrasts the requirements for each. In addition, the article offers insights into common issues and recommendations for VM-31 reports from the viewpoints of a regulator, consultant, and company actuary.

Description: Formulas for changes in GAAP liabilities and liability accrual rates are shown for three assumption update methods—retrospective, prospective and immediate.

Description: Perspectives on the Valuation Manual.

Description: This article describes methods for addressing technical challenges related to modeling asset cash flows for PBR reserve projections.

Description: Businesses across the board have been drastically impacted by the effects of COVID-19 over the course of 2020, and insurance was not immune. Perhaps most relevant to this industry’s current capital and liquidity concern is the prevailing low interest rate environment. This has been a global trend in the last decade, and treasury rates in much of the developed world are at or near zero. Reduced investment returns limit an insurer’s ability to achieve their desired return on equity, eliminating previously profitable strategies that depended on the leverage of life and annuity balance sheets. Focus and activity have instead shifted to other methods to counteract the low interest rate markets and accompanying capital strain. Examples include increased mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity within the insurance industry and an increasing focus by private equity firms in the insurance market for asset-intensive products, both of which reflect the goal of increasing yield rates on capital.

Description: This article is aimed to cover the following: 1) Provides an assessment of income volatility under Long Duration Targeted Improvements (LDTI) for several key types of long duration contracts along with select illustrations, and compares against those under current GAAP, 2) Discuss areas where accounting policies or methodologies can influence income volatility, and 3) Show how a company's management reporting can be adapted to help explain income variances under LDTI.

Description: Feature article discussing the changes IFRS 4 Phase II will have on reinsurance contracts.

Description: Illustrates the effects that proposed GAAP changes will have on earnings emergence of universal life contracts.

Description: Description of FASB redeliberations on targeted improvements for long duration contracts as of the end of 2017, including a summary of the anticipated impacts