Description: Companies need to learn to plan for uncertainty by taking into consideration downturns, not just an environment of moderation and occasional booms.

Description: This article examines the central formulas for Solvency II Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) and core life authorized control level risk-based capital (ACL RBC) and looks at their underlying assumptions.

Description: Provides an overview of several EBRI studies on spending by older Americans and brings together with Society of Actuaries research on shocks in retirement.

Description: Protecting oneself in older age from risks is the sine qua non of retirement planning. But far too many people don’t approach retirement (or retirement planning) well. From a policy perspective, we know about half the senior population will have some sort of long-term care event. We need to recognize that long-term care risk is a component not just of aging but of retirement. Placing long term care solutions in the retirement space is critical to reaching the bulk of the population. Combined with the additional element—recognition of risk—this would be both a powerful protection but also a natural one for individuals to understand.

Description: This presentation from Session 82 of the SOA June 2005 New Orleans Health/Pension Spring Meeting discusses the risks faced by pension plan sponsors, and the role of the actuary in measuring, discussing, managing, and mitigating these risks. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Description: Part 3 proposes solutions to the third of three flaws of the current financial model to obtaining the fair value of the public sector employer’s pension benefit liability.

Description: Ways for management to measure, integrate and use Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) information to analyze, compare, discuss, and monitor risks such that appropriate risk management decisions can be made.

Description: This article focuses on the family as part of the lifetime security safety net. It looks at several issues, research and seniors' expectations.

Description: This article discusses the need for a better strategy for defined benefit pension plans. While pension costs per se can be considered independently of investment strategy, the volatility of costs cannot. Many defined benefit plan sponsors are acutely aware of this volatility and are freezing or terminating their defined benefit pension plans. From Pension Section News, September 2006, No. 62.

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.