Description: The editor of Health Watch previews the articles in this issue.

Description: Update on federal tax legislative and regulatory developments relevant to life insurers and their products.

Description: The LTC insurance sector faces a crisis of credibility due to recent company failures. Market evidence indicates reduced confidence in the reserve sufficiency of companies with large legacy LTC exposures. Disclosures show the persistence of problematic actuarial and investment return assumptions. Institutional backstops exist but vary by jurisdiction and have elements which can exacerbate rather than ameliorate problems. Fortunately, LTC liabilities accrue over long time periods. An industry supported incentive structure can be conceived that would establish stronger standards and encourage greater reserving in exchange for a more reliable and rational backstop.

Description: A Request for Proposals (RFP) for research studies on the impact of climate change and catastrophes on the U.S. health infrastructure. It outlines the background, objectives, submission requirements, and selection process for potential researchers.

Description: 2021 Life Meeting - Session 8B: Proxy Discrimination in Life Insurance 9.1.21 Recording

Description: The document is a Call for Proposals issued by the Society of Actuaries Research Institute's Research Executive Committee, outlining the background, purpose, research objectives, suggested topic areas, proposal requirements, evaluation criteria, selection process, submission guidelines, and conditions for funding high-quality research projects related to emerging issues in actuarial practice areas.

Description: There are practical and conceptual aspects underlying (re)insurability. Practically, something or someone is insurable if an insurer is willing provide insurance coverage at a price the applicant is willing to pay. In contrast, a conceptual view of (re)insurabiity incorporates a range of more complex factors usually considered in the insurance process. This article discusses these two approaches.

Description: 2020 and 2021 presented numerous challenges to life and annuity product development actuaries. External forces required carriers to rethink underwriting requirements and risk assessment in real time. Alterations in regulatory frameworks and statutory requirements forced changes to product development priorities while alterationsin the work environment forced changes in how work routines were structured. This session will bring together a group of life and annuity stakeholders to discuss how they addressed these and other challenges, and how their work will be impacted going forward.

Description: Discusses published IRS guidance, legislation in process, current developments under the new Pension Protection Act, and finally, what to anticipate from the IRS in the next several months. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 1.

Description: For decades the negotiated prices between health care providers, insurance carriers, and networks have been tightly-guarded trade secrets. That's quickly changing. Health care price transparency is now bipartisan-supported law. Gag clauses have been banned. Starting in January 2021 hospitals were subject to new rules requiring disclosure of the payment rates they receive from health plans to both consumers and the general public. So far, compliance has been mixed. Similar rules for payers become effective later in 2022 and 2023 for health plans and consumers. While entrenched interests are doing their best to stall transparency, unless the laws change, transparency is going to happen and will rock the commercial health insurance market, providing the long awaited opportunity for meaningful health care cost reductions. Learn more about price transparency laws and regulations, examine rocky implementation to-date, and discuss the role of self-insured employers in leading the market changes that will emerge from price transparency. By attending this session, you will be able to: - Name the applicable price transparency laws and rules. - See transparency as more than a list of new compliance requirements and consumer tools. - Anticipate that the downstream impacts of transparency on commercial health insurance will be profound. - Appreciate the increased power of self-insured employers.