Description: I.R.C. § 4371 imposes an excise tax on policies issued by foreign insurers or reinsurers covering U.S. risks. The application of the tax to funds withheld reinsurance can raise difficult questions. The IRS’s position is that an accrual concept applies, although that position is questionable. Taxpayers that instead determine the excise tax by looking only to actual payments made by the ceding company to the reinsurer or to the net amount of the ceded premiums after adjusting for the allowance paid by the reinsurer have a variety of arguments to support their position. The language of the premium excise tax, the regulations thereunder, the legislative history of the provision, and the very nature of an excise tax all support the position that the tax applies only when there is an actual payment. Other Code provisions that use similar language as well as the Supreme Court also support this view.

Description: A tremendous amount of work goes into each issue of the Reinsurance News. At this year’s SOA Spring Meeting in New Orleans, we spent some time reviewing the strategy for the newsletters, both print and electronic, and identifying topic areas that would be of interest to section members. The section publishes an electronic newsletter, Re-News! on a timely basis as events or news items need to be distributed. The print newsletter will continue to be distributed twice a year.

Description: LEARN is an offering to regulators about reinsurance. This article summarizes a session held for Brazilian health regulators in the fall of 2022.

Description: Reinsurance News co-editor Ronald Poon-Affat discusses the morality and ethics involved in life insurance

Description: “Getting to Woe Some” is a thought-provoking title for Rick Flaspöhler’s recent presentation to the ACLI Reinsurance Executive Round Table in March 2005. Flaspöhler presented the high-level findings of the biennial reinsurance survey, and in his words this industry has gone from “bad to worse.” The reinsurance industry now finds itself in a unique and difficult situation that will require dramatic steps to improve things going forward.

Description: brief discussion on Solvency II and accounting regimes, and update on Reinsurance Section activity.

Description: First dollar carriers, stop loss carriers, and reinsurers play a different role in reimbursing healthcare claims. This article explores the reinsurer's role in reimbursing COVID-19 related claims.

Description: Read the July 2019 issue of Reinsurance News published by the Reinsurance Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about the section activities.

Description: This article looks at stochastic techniques actuaries can use to quantify the non-market risks in insurance products and how stochastic techniques can be used in the evaluation of reinsurance arrangements.

Description: This article discusses the results of the 2018 SOA Life Reinsurance Survey and looks at overall life reinsurance trends.