Description: This survey is an annual survey that captures individual and group life data from U.S. and Canadian life reinsurers.

Description: Feature article discussing how market interest rates and bond yields dropped in response to the global financial crisis in late 2008, and they have struggled to return to their prior levels, in part because the Federal Reserve has made efforts to spur growth and lending in a sluggish U.S. economy.

Description: Discusses key issues to improve the retirement system in the U.S. in a primarily defined contribution environment. Focuses on age at retirement, how people retire, and covering risks including disability and longevity risk. Some ideas are feasible within current environment and some require policy change.

Description: The new 2001 CSO regulation requires the filing of an asset adequacy opinion when the table is utilized - which can be a significant issue for small insurers.

Description: An exploration of the seasonality of mortality and how total population mortality is related to flu and pneumonia mortality.

Description: Variable Annuity DAC: A Survey of Current Practice by Laura J. Hay and Elizabeth Rogalin from The Financial Reporter, December 2002, Issue No. 51. Examines the DAC calculation for Variable Annuities and the possible write down of DAC under revised assumptions.

Description: Discusses the influences that foreign economies have on the U.S. economy and the risks that those influences create for the U.S. life insurance industry.

Description: Describes how the mantra of 'tax cuts will pay for themselves" along with the political unwillingness to cut spending (extant since the 1980s), has led to this increasing debt problem in the U.S., reaching $17 trillion at time of writing. Other countries are behaving in a similar fashion, and it can be only a matter of time before the globe may reach another crisis, this time based on excessive government debt coupled with fewer interested investors.

Description: This editorial notes that a letter, appearing in this issue of The Actuary,’ may not be alone in maintaining that the vagaries of our regulatory system handicap companies to the point that United States policyholders get poorer value for their premium dollar than do those in other countries.’ The article goes on to discuss guaranteed surrender values, the state regulatory system in the U.S and other topics in addressing this question.

Description: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.