Description: This article is a review and discussion of the 1976 “Report of the Consultant Panel on Social Security to the United States Congressional Research Service.” The report contains the results of another government-initiated study of the OASDI system which puts forth a second solution to a problem first publicly identified by the 1975 Advisory Council on Social Security, a problem which has come to be known as the “decoupling issue.” Because the solution proposed by the actuaries and economists making up this consultant panel is significantly different from that of the Advisory Council, this report has inspired some degree of friendly debate among actuaries and others interested in the technicalities of the OASDI benefit formula. Panel members are Peter A. Diamond, James C. Hickman, Ernest J. Moorhead, and William C. Hsiao, Chairman.

Description: This is an editorial warning about the escalating costs of Medicare as outlined in the 1983 Annual Report of The Board of Trustees of The Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. The editorial ends with a question asking what the actuarial profession, and its members individually, ought to be doing that they aren’t already doing?

Description: This article provides a formulaic method of comparing unit reserves on different valuation bases. This enables a duration-by-duration comparison of the components of the calculation on two different valuation bases. This can be done ignoring taxes or assuming taxes are recognized in calculating the expected return on capital in pricing.

Description: Article from The Actuary, February 1972 – volume 6 - Issue 2 provides a review of an article in the September, 1971 issue of Operations Research, the scientific journal of the Operations Research Society of America ORSA. The reviewer points out the similarities between the actuarial profession and Operations Research as both professions are involved with analytic methods in planning, managing, and evaluating complex systems.

Description: Through a public relations effort launched first by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries [CIA] and then the SOA, two actuaries representing the profession capitalized on their abilities to analyze future contingent events in the 1998 baseball season’s home run race. This article describes the efforts of Mel Norton, FCIA and John Dewan, FSA to predict who would break Roger Maris’ 1961 record of 61 home runs in one season.

Description: Insurance companies use derivatives to manage and mitigate risks that are inherent in their investment or liability portfolios, including traditional asset/liability matching, dynamic hedging and static hedging. The authors explore how Solvency II will influence life insurers’ hedging strategies.

Description: This article is about how actuarial services can be applied to life care retirement communities.

Description: This article describes how Long-Term Care riders attached to Life Insurance policies provide real insurance value at a reasonable cost and allow life insurance companies to compete on a basis other than cost.

Description: This article discusses the need for a sophisticated modeling system capable of analyzing the impact of the variables present in pension plan projections and providing management with information which it may act upon.

Description: Comments on the article “Developing an Actuarial Programming Language” by Russell J. Mueller in the April newsletter in which it was suggested that “a study should be undertaken to determine the feasibility of developing” such a language. In this connection, the author feels it to be appropriate to draw attention to some practical considerations which should form part of such a study.