Description: The April/May 2016 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: As the size of the life reinsurance market in Bermuda has grown to over half a trillion dollars at the end of 2021, more and more actuaries are getting involved with this 21 square mile North Atlantic island in one way or the other. Come explore a fundamental understanding of the Bermuda solvency framework and an overview of its upcoming changes.

Description: Explore the value and cost of prescription drugs, how they should be defined and measured and the effects various stakeholders in the pharmacy ecosystem can have on these factors in the latest webcast. You'll investigate the impact of coverage, formulary and rebate negotiations and related benefit design. Find out how actuaries can answer questions related to the prescription drug industry, in addition to improving the access, quality and affordability of prescription drugs in the United States. Join us for this webcast and come learn about value-based contract design, negotiations, implementation and administration for prescription drugs.

Description: This webcast provides an overview of the key provisions of the recently enacted SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, which significantly changed the rules that apply to qualified retirement plans and IRAs. The presenters will examine a history of the legislation and focus on some of the key provisions of the Act. In particular, we will discuss provisions that give individuals more flexibility on how they will contribute to their retirement accounts and provisions that provide new ways for individuals to save. Explore certain significant structural changes to the rules such as the automatic enrollment for new plans and the elimination of lifetime RMDs for designated Roth accounts. The panel will also focus on the provisions that provide greater access to retirement funds through new distribution exceptions and how this might affect a company’s reporting obligations. Come learn about some of the relief provisions included in SECURE 2.0, including an expanded EPCRS program to cover errors relating to IRAs. In addition to a discussion about the key provisions, the panel will review steps companies should be taking to implement the SECURE 2.0 provisions, including timelines for amending documents and systems. Identify certain issues for which guidance or technical corrections is likely needed, such as clarification on the required beginning date age.

Description: 2020 and 2021 presented numerous challenges to life and annuity product development actuaries. External forces required carriers to rethink underwriting requirements and risk assessment in real time. Alterations in regulatory frameworks and statutory requirements forced changes to product development priorities while alterationsin the work environment forced changes in how work routines were structured. This session will bring together a group of life and annuity stakeholders to discuss how they addressed these and other challenges, and how their work will be impacted going forward.

Description: In 2020, the Korean insurance regulator, Financial Services Commission (FSC), introduced a coinsurance structure allowing for full risk transfer—including investment risk, interest rate risk, insurance risk, and policyholder lapse risk—as a permitted practice. Expanding use of coinsurance in the Korean insurance market brings a suite of potential benefits to Korean insurance companies including increased financial flexibility, options to improve policyholder protection and shareholder value through optimization of business strategies. As such, FSC’s initiative and intention to introduce coinsurance opportunities to the market is commendable.

Description: The big event of 2023 is the launch of multiple Humira biosimilars, which began in January with the arrival of Amgen’s Amjevita on the market. The launch of Amjevita kicks off the process of changing the specialty drug marketplace in the United States. The expectation of the full impact of this big event is very hopeful, but there is still uncertainty several months after its beginning. Humira is the highest-selling drug in the world and has been since 2013 (Figure 1)—except for when COVID-19 projects temporarily surpassed it. The world is eagerly awaiting the launch of multiple biosimilar drugs to compete with Humira and hopefully bring more competitive pricing to the benefit of payers and patients everywhere.

Description: 1992 SOA Regional Meeting, Chicago. This discussion is about direct marketing growth in the 1980s, sustaining the growth in the 1990s, regulatory constraints in the 1990s, impact of continuing production cost increases, new product designs, and declining response rate.

Description: This essay explores the role that the emerging defined contribution retirement system may be playing in the growth of wealth inequality in the United States. The current system leaves many Americans with little or no retirement savings. Those with higher accumulation levels appear to invest proportionally more in equities, which may have an exponential effect of balances over long time periods. The author hypothesizes that willingness to take investment risk involves the relationship between the amount an investor has accumulated and what she/he needs in order to cover basic costs of living. This is one reason that investors with greater accumulation levels may be able to earn higher rates of return. The essay concludes by suggesting that the U.S. defined contribution system should include all workers and provide additional fiduciary guidance. Examples reforms, both in the U.S. and other countries, are provided.

Description: The Health Section Council Chairperson looks back at a historic year for the health care industry, and what it means for health actuaries.