Description: From the 1985 Valuation Actuary Symposium. A discussion of the principles that should be part of a life insurance valuation. Also discussion of emerging actuarial professional standards of practice and regulatory requirements with respect to methodology for assessing reserve adequacy.

Description: Although rate structures where low-cost cohorts subsidize high cost cohorts may be justified from a actuarial, marketing, or legal standpoint, the subsidization creates risks which must be understood and monitored. This article presents the concept of subsidization signature to measure and interpret the effects of rate subsidization, and to assess the sustainability of rating structures and the sensitivity of business mix assumptions.

Description: This e-book contains topical essays that express the opinions and thoughts of a number of authors on the subject. It should be understood that the thoughts and insights shared herein are the opinion of the authors and not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the Casualty Actuarial Society, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, or corresponding employers of the essayists.

Description: Summary of the health section council’s research project to assess the accuracy of commonly used IBNR estimation methods over a wide range of scenarios.

Description: The editors preview the articles in the February 2010 issue of Health Watch.

Description: Realizing the impact of medical errors on the U.S. health care system, the Health Section commissioned a research project to measure the annual frequency of medical errors and their total measurable direct and indirect cost to the economy.

Description: This paper considers the question of whether the growth in the size of financial statements witnessed over the last several years has yielded an increase in the quality of disclosure around issues of financial risk and to what extent this disclosure is satisfying the perceived needs of readers of the financial statements, as represented by the investment analyst community.

Description: Article describing the purpose of the Academy’s Actuarial Opinion and Memorandum (AOM) Discussion Group.

Description: From the 1986 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held in Washington DC in October 1986 Discussion of emerging practice and regulations of the NAIC and New York Insurance Department with respect to requirements placed on the methods and assumptions used by the valuation actuary in producing the support for the Actuarial Opinion as to the adequacy of reserves for life insurance companies

Description: The guest editorial details some valuable lessons during the author’s career as an employee benefits (mostly retirement) consultant, turned P&C predictive modeling, reporting and data warehousing lead, turned an analytic strategist and independent consultant.