Description: The presenters will discuss the current interest rate market environment and what insurance companies can do to best protect themselves from interest rate risk. The presenters, industry leaders in financial risk management, will explore how different products and strategies—including swaps, options, and other derivatives—are being used in today’s market. The discussion will include how to model and measure interest rate risk, how to quantify hedge effectiveness, and how to improve hedging operations.

Description: This is report summarizes the results of a Joint Risk Management Section sponsored study on negative interest rates and the insurance industry.

Description: The current coronavirus pandemic has caused a number of challenges for life insurers and this article summarizes the operational challenges, namely in two areas. First, the article will discuss the challenges companies are facing to collect traditional underwriting evidence and potential short-term solutions used to overcome these limitations. Second, the actions companies are taking to alleviate the financial difficulties customers may have paying premiums will be addressed.

Description: Results of the PBITT Working Group annual Variable Annuity Survey.

Description: This report looks at identifying drivers of systemic risk to China’s insurance industry and develops a measurement method for systemic risk as well as systemic risk dependence between the insurance industry and other industries.

Description: The ASB recently approved ASOP 56 - Modeling for all practice areas effective October 1, 2020. This new standard provides important guidance for the ERM practitioner as they build, use, and review the many different types of models used in everyday applications.

Description: Note from the Council Corner providing an update to our JRMS members on recent / upcoming activities.

Description: Apart from their operating environment and the core risks they help others mitigate, organizations are largely impacted by behaviors--particularly those of their policyholders. This session builds on the first session in this series by considering how medical advances might influence policyholders, while also considering how agents/brokers, product design, and the economy can also be influencers. Weigh whether and to what extent behavioral uncertainties have been adequately integrated into the firms' assessments of business performance, both past and future. The presenters will also highlight activities being undertaken by firms to influence behaviors, in part building on the second session in this series by considering these activities through a regulatory lens. This session is for anyone interested in enhancing their understanding of uncertainty due to behavioral factors.

Description: The Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries' Joint Risk Management Section and the Joint Risk Management Research Committee are pleased to make available a new report on the application of ERM. Authored by Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, Sim Segal, Michael Wolfson and Heidi Walsh, the report provides a novel demonstration on how ERM can be applied to serve the Canadian public by informing decision makers on the risks facing the current and future delivery of long-term care.

Description: Model Risk Management continues to be an evolving area for insurers to be considering. This has grown from both internal and external forces and may require a different format to previous model risk frameworks held by insurers. Furthermore, there are a number of trends emerging that we believe will drive an increased focus on insurer’s model risk management frameworks such as technology automation, ever increasing data sources, and the use of predictive models. Risk management and the development of models is an area where insurance companies have performed well in the past. It is expected that frameworks currently exist within companies; the governance, documentation, validation and control of model risk are likely to be well established practices. The challenge that insurers must consider is how well these have been adopted throughout the company for all models used to make business decisions and if the same level of rigor has consistently been applied. Regulation in a high-velocity actuarial environment will to be a challenge that actuaries must spearhead and must be proactive in guiding rule making to ensure continued innovation while putting data security and risk management first.