Description: This article describes methodologies for detection and deterrence of Medicare fraud. It also describes the validation of PRIDIT for fraud detection in Medicare.

Description: In December 1997, the Society of Actuaries held a conference whose focus was actuarial and financial modeling. During the course of that conference, one of the speakers mentioned a number of technologies his firm was using for modeling, which were either unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar to some of the audience. The purpose of this paper is to define each of the technologies mentioned during that presentation and to briefly describe their distinguishing characteristics. The technologies discussed in this paper are statistical pattern recognition [SPR], neural networks [NNs], genetic algorithms [GAs], simulated annealing, fractal analysis, chaos theory, rule induction, data fusion algorithms [DFAs], data compression, fuzzy logic, case-based reasoning, and expert systems.

Description: A study of the effect of random interest rates on life insurance programs and on annuities both certain and non-certain. This is done under several assumptions on the stochastic structure of the interest rates.

Description: These are Charts 5-8 from a presentation entitled 'Stochastic Immunization'. From a session at a meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Diego, CA, June 22-23, 2000

Description: Regime switching models have become a popular tool in econometric time series modeling since their introduction in Hamilton [1989].These models have been widely applied for equity-returns for investment guarantees. A prominent risk management challenge is hedging these guarantees, given the equity regime switching process. This presentation develops some methodologies for regime-switching portfolio replication and use real world data to demonstrate and evaluate their effects. A Bayesian approach for regime switching model fitting is used, which allows for the examination of the robustness of each of the optimization methods when parameter uncertainty is present.

Description: This article presents recent perspectives on the understanding and measurement of pandemic risk.

Description: This article describes some of the drawbacks to the assessment of longevity risk adopted by most practitioners within the UK together with an initiative that provides a platform for an alternative approach that is both (a) more forward-looking in nature and (b) can complement current practices.

Description: Discussion of the movement toward principle-based reserves for LTC insurance.

Description: While Model Efficiency and Model Governance may seem like completely separate topics, there is an intersection of them that should be of growing interest to modeling actuaries. This column from the Modeling Section Chair explores this area, asking how we will govern the increasing use of innovative modeling efficiency techniques.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to explore pension plan metrics— – measuring the behavior of a defined- benefit pension plan in an uncertain environment. Our goal is to measure and evaluate the quantitative impact of competing policy choices. We proceed by investigating some basic pension metrics, evaluating the characteristics of each using a simulated pension plan. We find that some typical metrics— – such as the mean and standard deviation— – are useful only in certain circumstances and that other less traditional measurements are sometimes better suited to evaluating policy choices.