Description: Automobile insurers classify the risks that they underwrite in order to subdivide the portfolio into classes of risks with similar profiles. While some insurers may have sufficient historical data, several others may not have significant volume of experience data in order to produce reliable claims predictions to help enhance their risk classification systems. A database containing a pooled experience of several insurers thereby helps to produce a more fair, reliable, and equitable premium structure for all risks concerned. This paper uses multilevel models to analyze the data on claim counts provided by the General Insurance Association of Singapore, an organization consisting of most of the general insurers in Singapore. The multilevel nature of the data is due to the following: a certain vehicle is observed over a period of years and is insured by a particular insurance company under a certain 'fleet' policy. The authors show how intercompany data lead to a priori premiums and a posteriori corrections to these initial premiums. Specific focus is made in understanding the intercompany effects using various count distribution models [Poisson, negative binomial, zero–inflated and hurdle Poisson]. The performance of these various models is compared the authors also investigate how to use the historical claims of a company, fleet and/or vehicle in order to correct for the premium initially set.

Description: The Committee on Finance Research makes available a research report exploring the mechanics and implementation of economic capital programs for life insurance companies. Discussion items include common methods for calculating economic capital advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Description: This paper employs the theory of real option pricing to address problems in the area of operational risk management. Particularly, it develops a two-stage model to help firms determine the optimal triggers in the event of an influenza pandemic. The first stage proposes a regime-dependent epidemic model to simulate the spread of the virus, depending on whether the firm is active or inactive. The second stage views the reactivation decision as a call option and the suspension decision as a put option, and uses dynamic programming method to determine the optimal switching thresholds.

Description: This paper incorporates a jump-diffusion process into the original Lee-Carter model, and uses it to forecast mortality rates and analyze mortality securitization.

Description: From June 11 through August 3, 2007, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [UIUC] hosted a National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates on the topic 'Stochastic Modeling in Actuarial Science and Financial Mathematics.' This Experience, provided to 6 undergraduate mathematics students from universities across the United States, was directed by Professor Rick Gorvett, the Director of the UIUC Actuarial Science Program. This report summarizes the program and describes the research projects undertaken.

Description: Milliman, Inc. Milliman was retained by the Society of Actuaries SOA to perform certain actuarial analyses with respect to the Z-Factor methodology under a principles-based approach PBA to statutory reserve and capital. Under PBA, the Z-Factor is a measure of margin in excess of the best estimate assumptions embedded in the statutory reserves of a life insurance product or block of business.

Description: A research project with the Society of Actuaries on interest rate hedging on traditional life and health insurance.

Description: This paper provides a new insight to the previous work of Briys and de Varenne [1994], Grosen and Jørgensen [2002] and Chen and Suchanecki [2007]. It shows that if an insurance company follows a risk management strategy, it can significantly change the risk exposure of the company, and that it should thus be taken into account by the regulators.

Description: For insurance companies, modeling the future values of assets and their interactions is useful for setting up asset strategies and managing reserves for liabilities. This paper evaluates the ability of Wilkie’s stochastic investment models to predict Toronto Stock Exchange [TSX] price index yield. In the Wilkie Model, correlated econometric indices are modeled through a cascade structure.

Description: U.K. life insurers writing participating business are required by the Financial Services Authority to value their assets and liabilities on a market-consistent basis. The purpose of this paper is to: • Explain the valuation approach based on market-consistent values and its rationale. • Set out the issues faced by life insurers in implementing the regime. • Explain how insurers addressed these issues. • Explain the importance of the modeling techniques they used.

Description: This research report study uses the property/liability insurance industry as a research sample to examine how risk management, financial management, and capital management are related to each another. This allows reflecting such relationships in: 1. the managerial decisions in the choice of derivative and reinsurance use. 2. the allocation of asset risks. 3. the determination of underwriting activities as well as liabiity risks. 4. the adequacy of capital levels.

Description: This paper presents a model for analyzing the impact of underwriting cycles on an insurer’s surplus. The model allows the insurer to vary its security loading in response to the cycles, with a strategy parameter that indicates the extent to which the insurer follows the loading which prevails in the market. The insurer’s claim rate is also allowed to vary to reflect exposure changes that result from the insurer’s strategy. The paper analyzes ruin probabilities using both simulation and a Lundberg-type upper bound which is developed in the paper. It finds that the latter is suitable and convenient for comparing ruin probabilities under the different insurer strategies.

Description: Attempts to Quantify Potential Impact of Pandemic Influenza on the U.S. Life Insurance Industry

Description: The Joint CAS-CIA-SOA Risk Management Section commissioned this report to explore the practices that would enable a company to optimize the integration of risk, capital, and financial management. Based on our research, several effective practices have emerged relative to implementation of a linked environment. These include: 1) Development of a corporate oversight committee, representing senior management commitment to implementation. 2) Development of a framework, specifying how the goal of linkage will be accomplished. 3) Risk identification and assessment, clearly key to the understanding of the organization’s risk profile. 4) Actual linkage of risk, capital and financial management through the use of economic capital modeling and performance measurement on a risk-adjusted basis. 5) Education and communication throughout the organization.

Description: Sometimes, rare things happen and the least expected occurs. Indeed, some events occur once or twice in a lifetime leaving little room to learn from experiences. In financial markets, extreme events, no matter how rare, could have a profound impact on a company or even the whole country. Insurers are also not free from the impact of catastrophic large-scale extreme events. As a result, with pervasive economic and financial revolutions sweeping our world and potential devastative catastrophes, the increasing interest in tail risk management is fuelled by practical issues, including investment downside risk and insurance catastrophe risk. Thus, developing statistical techniques to model extreme investment and insurance losses is certainly a major task for risk managers. the purpose of our paper is to apply moment methods to estimate the joint events such as concurrent extreme investment loss and insurance loss. A novel aspect of this article is that it takes into account the correlation between different assets and insurance lines of business.

Description: This document provides key findings from the 2007 Risks and Process of Retirement Survey related to how respondents conceive retirement and how they retire.

Description: This paper discusses a theoretical framework for Enterprise Risk Management, risk dynamics within property-casualty insurance companies, empirical findings on widely used risk models, and examples of effective risk models.

Description: This is a 2006 draft of SOA Accreditation of Academic Actuarial Science Programs that was offered for review and comments. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2006.

Description: This paper examines the Australian actuarial qualification process from the perspective of what makes a good education system, and notes that there are a number of constraints imposed by the profession that impair the quality of students’ learning outcomes. The paper goes on to suggest how these pitfalls might be avoided in the interests of providing future actuaries with an opportunity to develop the attributes they will need for their professional careers. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2006.

Description: This paper discusses mathematical modeling and pricing of 'Stable Value' financial products offered to pension plan providers. These products target a risk-averse population of investors who have a significant preference for a stability of returns. The paper offers a quantitative methodology that reflects a decision making process applicable in the situation of incomplete markets where traditional arbitrage free arguments are invalid.

Description: This report is jointly sponsored by LIMRA International and the Society of Actuaries in collaboration with Ernst & Young. It describes Substandard Annuities and discusses the market opportunity for them, underwriting, the associated risk management issues, and the issues companies need to address when competing in the substandard annuity market. It discusses the single premium immediate annuity, SPIA, in relation to substandard annuities and the differences between the products.

Description: This report provides the results of a VA survey on policyholder behavior in the tail on VA products containing guaranteed minimum benefits.

Description: This paper considers the question of whether or not the growth in the size of financial statements witnessed over the last several years has yielded an increase in the quality of disclosure around issues of financial risk and to what extent this disclosure is satisfying the perceived needs of readers of the financial statements, as represented by the investment analyst community. The question is addressed by presenting the results of research consisting of 1 the review and analysis of the disclosures addressing issues of financial risk contained within financial statements issued from 1999 to 2004 by 25 major insurance companies operating in the US and 2 the interviewing of 5 insurance industry analysts to understand their perceptions of what is good and bad about financial disclosure practices of life insurance companies.

Description: Formal report of the Accreditation Implementation Task Force to the Board of Directors at its June 2005 meeting. This document contains general objectives of the task force, membership and structure information, and the group's strategic plan for implementing an accreditation program for actuarial science academic programs.

Description: A frustrating aspect of pension funding rules for U.S. plan sponsors is that contribution requirements are adversely correlated with business cycles. For example, not only did plan sponsors get hit with large contribution requirements in the perfect storm of the early 2000s, but many sponsors were prohibited from contributing in the late 1990s boom due to full funding limitations. This paper proposes that plan sponsors be allowed to contribute the normal cost as a deductible contribution each year. In hindsight, this would have allowed plan sponsors to pay for benefits as they accrued in the late 1990s and ultimately mitigated some of the crash of the early 2000s. The authors aim to demonstrate that a contribution policy allowing contributions to be at least equal to the normal cost will result in less volatility of contributions and improve the funded status over time.

Description: “Non-traditional” guarantees refer to guarantees that are in addition to traditional mortality, expense, and interest guarantees. Examples of such types of guarantees are death and living benefits on variable annuity contracts and no-lapse guarantees on universal life or variable universal life products. The purpose of this paper is to offer practitioners an overview of the various issues concerning the pricing of these guarantees, the many other issues which need to be analyzed and addressed in the determination of risks and the management of the block of business, and the results of a company survey of practices. This paper is based on the working knowledge of the authors, a broad compilation of literature and the company survey results. At the end of most sections of the paper, we have provided a list of resources which we have selected as some of the best sources available for those practitioners interested in researching the subject matter further.

Description: This program allows the user to explore in great detail a technical problem that has occupied a number of investors, financial writers and especially retirees, during the last few years, as the baby boomers start to approach retirement. Namely, what is the probability that one will run out of money before running out of life, if his or her current standard of living is maintained? This is a zip file which includes the Retirement Probability Analyzer software, an instruction manual and a PowerPoint presentation explaining the program.

Description: One of the first projects undertaken by Claim Analytics was to create a model to predict return to work for group insurance claimants with long term disabilities. This report, sponsored in part by the Society of Actuaries Health Section , is a case study on creating such a model.

Description: The Stochastic Volatility, SV, model is used for capturing the empirical properties of financial time series. This paper overviews those properties and compares the SV model with the heavy-tailed error distribution Student t-distribution and the SV model with the normal error distribution. The Simulated Maximum Likelihood, SML, method is applied to estimate the parameters and the latent volatility.

Description: This paper represents a brief progress report on research, being sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries, in the area of modeling of economic series. In particular, research is being undertaken to provide a foundation for the actuarial community’s modeling of a variety of economic variables, including interest rates, equity returns, inflation, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels. The specific objectives of this research are to provide a summary of the literature in the area of economic scenario modeling, identify data sources and methodologies in this area useful to the actuarial profession, and produce working software for economic modeling, including appropriate documentation, to be made available to the general actuarial community in order to allow actuaries to use and build upon this research. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.

Description: In this paper, we consider the relationship between salary growth, stock and long bond returns. We use this to suggest that equities may have a role in hedging final salary-related benefits. Simulations from the empirical distribution for salaries, equities and interest rates are used to demonstrate the quantile hedge.

Description: Equity-indexed annuities [EIAs] can be viewed as mutual funds wrapped around with various guarantees. A recent paper derived a closed form formula for pricing this dynamic guarantee if early withdrawal from the fund [before maturity] is not permitted. This paper studies the pricing of dynamic protection without a maturity date, i.e., the investor chooses the date to cash in the fund accumulation.

Description: This paper is the final report in a project commissioned by the Society of Actuaries Social Security Committee. The paper considers a variety of possible risk classification factors that could be used in estimating the value of any mortality based benefit for retirees. As many countries consider mandatory individual retirement accounts as their answer to a secure Social Security system, the question arises as to whether all workers can get true 'market value' annuities when they retire. It is clear today that private sector life annuities are priced assuming that the applicant is healthy-very healthy. Very little underwriting or risk classification now exists in the individual annuity marketplace. This paper reviews 45 recent research papers that look at factors that affect mortality after retirement. In particular, factors that seem to be important in predicting retirement mortality include: age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, income, occupation, marital status, religion, health behaviors, smoking, alcohol, and obesity. For each factor, this paper gives highlights relative to the named factor of the impact expected from that variable as described in the 45 reviewed research papers.

Description: The purpose of this report is to describe our modified approach, provide our rationale, and identify as best we can the alternatives put forward by actuaries who do not share our views.

Description: In this paper, we propose measures of the risk that the value of the liabilities becomes larger than the value of the assets, and this especially for insurance companies. We study probabilities of mismatching and a degree of mismatching in unsegmented and multidimensional models of the balance, in which we stress the influence of interest rates on the active and passive side of the balance.

Description: This paper, written following a UK Actuarial meeting, is divided into three parts. Taken together, the three parts intend to provide the reader with an overview of the first 101 years of financial economics, with particular attention on those developments that are of special interest to actuaries.

Description: This paper reports on the findings of a working group established in 1999 by the SOA's Finance Practice Area to look at how the insurance industry measures and monitors risk through risk position reporting. Also the working group established industry standard practices in risk position reporting and reported on a number of areas for possible improvement in such reporting.

Description: In May, 2001, the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and the Society of Actuaries (SOA) jointly issued a request for proposals on the research topic “Modeling of Economic Series Coordinated with Interest Rate Scenarios.” The objectives of this request were to develop a research relationship with selected persons to investigate this topic; produce a literature review of work previously done in the area of economic scenario modeling; determine appropriate data sources and methodologies to enhance economic modeling efforts relevant to the actuarial profession; and produce a working model of economic series, coordinated with interest rates, that could be made public and used by actuaries via the CAS / SOA websites to project future economic scenarios. Categories of economic series to be modeled included interest rates, equity price levels, inflation rates, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels.

Description: Chapter 8 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes MINT, or Modeling Income in the Near Term, which is one of three retirement income and social security models now being developed in the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics of the Social Security Administration. The accessibility, ease of use, cost as well as the strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed.

Description: Appendix B to SOA Research Report: Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This appendix describes several databases that have been used for study of retirement, pension and social security policy.

Description: This paper, part of the Society of Actuaries [SOA} ‘Research Projects – Finance/Investment,’ combines market and economic factors with insurer-specific data to form dynamic financial models of life insurers. Empirical analysis is based on annual data from 1985 through 1995 for 1,593 life insurers. By identifying important exogenous and insurer-specific factors related to life insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. There are two documents: the research paper in .pdf format and three charts in an Excel document. This paper has been submitted to the ‘North American Actuarial Journal’ for publication considerations.

Description: The Society of Actuaries seeks to provide actuaries of life insurance companies with a systematic approach for estimating the adverse effects of economic developments that could impede insurer performance. The performance measurements include 1. Return on Equity, 2. Return on Assets, and 3. Increase in Surplus and Capial. Toward that end, this study combines market and economic factors with insurer-specific data to form dynamic financial models of life insurers. Empirical analysis is based on annual data from 1985 through 1995 for 1,593 life insurers. By identifying important exogenous and insurer-specific factors related to life insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. The study also identifies and describes several web sites that provide access to relevant economic and financial data. Also see the SOA website research page for excel spread sheets that have the charts that should be inserted in this report

Description: By identifying specific exogenous and insurer specific factors related to life-insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. The Life Insurers performance measurements are 1. Return on Equity, 2. Return on Assets and 3. Increase in Capital and Surplus. This paper has been submitted to the North American Actuarial Journal for publication considerations. This documents the specific charts embedded in the report. Please see the SOA web site for the detail report.

Description: Chapter 11 from the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. PIMS is a microsimulation model that produces a distribution of PBGC’s exposure over a defined time interval. This chapter describes the major components of PIMS, the data types in PIMS, the PIMS simulation process, simulation activities, and current output.

Description: Chapter 10 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes the Macroeconomic-Demographic Model of the U.S. Retirement Income System used to investigate alternative approaches to investment of the OASDI trust funds.

Description: The financing for Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, rather than the full-reserve system utilized in private insurance, and the financing conditions of the trust funds have more uncertainty than does the reserve in private insurance. Traditionally, the financing conditions have been decided by a deterministic approach using economic and demographic assumptions that rely upon negotiation among experts at various government agencies. This paper proposes an econometric approach, called the 'co-integrated multivariate time series model,' for forecasting the financing conditions of the trust funds. This stochastic approach not only establishes the interrelationships but also clarifies the co-movements among the economic assumptions. Furthermore, it helps analyze the original assumptions rather than the differences of the nonstationary assumption variables adopted by researchers in the past that are more difficult to interpret. Use of this approach permits the assessment of the probability distribution of the future balance of trust funds instead of assessing estimates from the three alternative deterministic assumptions. This distribution will provide policy-makers with a better assessment of stability of the trust funds.

Description: Design and future maintenance of an asset portfolio backing a new line of business is critical for proper asset and liability management for that business. Most portfolio optimization methods utilize linear or quadratic programming and require the user to specify the asset and liability attributes and cash flows into the program. The programmer must also supply an objective function to allow the program to find the optimal asset mix for the associated liabilities. Two problems with this approach are that the liability cash flows are fairly static and that one must frequently rebalance the portfolio. An alternative approach would be to develop a corporate model of both the assets and liabilities and incorporate various economic scenarios as input into the model. Asset strategies would be measured against a specific objective function that is calculated by the corporate model. Unfortunately, the majority of maximization algorithms available are very time consuming, and obtaining a reasonable portfolio mix becomes impractical. This paper overcomes this difficulty by using a very rapid optimization method from the chemical engineering profession called the Floppy Triangle. The paper includes an example of the use of this process to determine an optimal portfolio. It also discusses modifications of the algorithm that is required when the shorting of assets is not permitted.

Description: This paper analyzes the accuracy of the principal models used by U.S. insurance regulators to predict insolvencies in the property-liability insurance industry and compares these models with a relatively new solvency testing approach- cash flow simulation. Specifically, the authors compare the risk-based capital [RBC] system introduced by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners [NAIC] in 1994, the 'FAST' [audit ratio] system used by the NAIC, and a cash flow simulation model developed by the authors. Both the RBC and FAST systems are static, ratio based approaches to solvency testing, whereas the cash flow simulation model implements dynamic financial analysis. Logistic regression analysis is used to test the models for a large sample of solvent and insolvent property-liability insurers, using data from the years 1990-1992 to predict insolvencies over three-year prediction horizons. The authors find that the FAST system dominates RBC as a static method for predicting insurer insolvencies. Further, they find the cash flow simulation variables add significant explanatory power to the regressions and lead to more accurate solvency prediction than the ratio-based models taken alone.

Description: Chapter 6 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes DYNACAN, a dynamic microsimulation model developed and maintained in the Office of the Chief Actuary OCA of the Canada Pension Plan. It simulates the basic demographic and economic events relevant for calculation of CPP contributions and benefits. The strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibility and ease of use.

Description: In December 1997, the Society of Actuaries held a conference whose focus was actuarial and financial modeling. During the course of that conference, one of the speakers mentioned a number of technologies his firm was using for modeling, which were either unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar to some of the audience. The purpose of this paper is to define each of the technologies mentioned during that presentation and to briefly describe their distinguishing characteristics. The technologies discussed in this paper are statistical pattern recognition [SPR], neural networks [NNs], genetic algorithms [GAs], simulated annealing, fractal analysis, chaos theory, rule induction, data fusion algorithms [DFAs], data compression, fuzzy logic, case-based reasoning, and expert systems.

Description: This paper develops a simplified model for a pension fund, both deterministic and stochastic versions are presented. The probability distribution of the fund is derived incorporating the claims distribution and other parameters. Expected value and the variance of the fund are derived. Modifications required for the model when the interest rate is a moving average process are developed. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1998 Vol. 2.

Description: One of the most important influences on the development of an insurance market and on the development of professions, such as the actuarial profession, is the nature of regulation. This paper looks at four main economic models of regulation: 1. Market socialism, 2. Freedom with publicity, 3. Public interest, and 4. Public choice theory. The role of profession and other sophisticated products of the market order are also analysed.

Description: A study on modeling for retirement policy analysis. This initial chapter describes the scope of the project with detail on the variety of modeling approaches reviewed.

Description: Chapter 5 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes CORSIM, the Cornell Microsimulation Model, which is a large dynamic microsimulation model developed and maintained at Cornell University. CORSIM is a large-scale dynamic microsimulation model. It simulates the basic demographic and socioeconomic events that characterize the socioeconomic conditions of the population. Strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibilty and ease of use.

Description: Appendix A to SOA Research Report: Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. Terms described in this appendix include: Aging dynamic and static, Behavioral response first and second-round effects, Calibration, Distributional analysis including gainers and losers tables, Dynamic model, Filing unit, Imputation including hot deck, Matching exact and statistical, Microsimulation model, Static model, Weighting. Terms are defined with reference to their application in social welfare policy modeling.

Description: Chapter 4 of Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. The PRISM Pension and Retirement Income Simulation Model is a dynamic microsimulation model designed to simulate the retirement income and long term care utilization and financing of the elderly population. The strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibility and ease of use.

Description: Chapter 3 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes the Dynamic Simulation of Model Income DYNASIM which was the first large scale dynamic microsimulation model of the socioeconomic status and behavior of individuals and families. The strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibility and ease of use.

Description: Chapter 2 of the Models For Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes microsimulation analysis and the basic features of microsimulation models. It provides background for the description of each of the microsimulation models reviewed in this report. Strengths and limitations of these models are addressed.

Description: The main aim of this paper is to apply some of the techniques of modern time series and econometric analysis to analyse investment data in order to better understand the nature of long run relationships in investment series typically used in stochastic investment models. The paper attempts to identify and address fundamental issues that need to be considered before developing a particular stochastic investment model.

Description: This paper addresses the evaluation of long-term returns when the short interest rate is modeled by a general diffusion process. By deriving the long-term return dynamics and invoking the Feyman-Kac formula, the long-term return is represented as the solution of a partial differential equation. A finite difference method is derived for the valuation of the long-term return. The method could be used for hedging interest rate risk, pricing and managing interest rate derivatives and interest rate sensitive insurance products. Numerical examples are included.

Description: This paper examines the financial dynamics resulting from the currency exchange rate for medical insurance products that are denominated in a currency different from that in which covered medical expenses are incurred. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.

Description: This paper explores the flexibility of kernel estimation as a means of nonparametric graduation and relates it to moving-weighted-average graduation. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.

Description: This paper is intended to summarize the differences in theUP-94 and GAR-94 tables and to review issues that arise for actuaries in choosing the appropriate mortality table. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.

Description: This paper reviews the applications of operations research methods in the insurance industry. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.

Description: This paper focuses on the fact that life and annuity reserves that are determined from discounted case flows mask the dynamic nature of interest rates. To study this effect in a stochastic interest environment, the authors look at a change in discounted reserves. By looking at the appropriate measure of change, the paper explores potential short-term consequences of changes in the interest environment.

Description: This report identifies the risks that can affect insurance company solvency, provides information and opinions on techniques currently available, and comments on what additional research may be necessary.

Description: This paper analyzes the U. S. Treasury monthly interest rates from 1953 to 1992, and the daily rates from 1981 to 1992 for various forms of chaotic behavior. The primary analysis was in determining the Burst Exponent by the use of Rescaled Range Analysis. This paper also discusses other possible uses of Fractional Brownian Motion in Finance Theory, Macroeconomics, and Actuarial Science. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994 VOL. 1.

Description: In the past, discussion of actuarial education has focused on curriculum content [what is to be learned] and mode of delivery [university course versus part-time correspondence course]. Little attention has been paid to how students learn, and how that learning can be facilitated to develop actuaries with the knowledge, skills and values the profession needs. This paper deals with the university-related content of a more comprehensive paper prepared by the authors for the 1993 Convention of The Institute of Actuaries of Australia. It concentrates on students' learning in the undergraduate actuarial program at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, but it is likely that many of its findings and conclusions would apply equally to university actuarial courses elsewhere. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 1.

Description: This is the abstract for the paper entitled 'Pricing Long Term Insurance Contracts.' This paper considers several models describing the changes in the needs of the insured for care over time. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, VOL. 1.

Description: This paper explores and develops some initial ideas of roll-forward reserve funding of Social Security. It reports on the work of actuarial students and teachers for an 8-week study period coordinated with the National Science Foundation program of Research Experience for Undergraduate grants. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, VOL. 1.

Description: Easy access computing power is harnessed to approximate ruin probabilities. The dynamics of the traditional insurance model are stated in the form of period to period constraints. This allows the development of a life-table with the survival probabilities for a given set of parameters. Given the spreadsheet approach of the model, sensitivity analysis to study the impact of different parameter values and loss variable distributions can be easily implemented.

Description: Concomitant with the industrial revolution, the function of providing old age income shifted from families and local institutions to government social security and private pension plans. The history of this change in the U.K. and U.S. is reviewed. A simple mathematical model provides insights into the role played by three rates [the rate of increase of the working population, the time preference rate, and the rate of real wage growth] in determining optimum funding policy. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 2.

Description: The goal of this paper is to dispel the prevailing belief that American-style options cannot be valued efficiently in a simulation model by presenting a general algorithm for such valuation, and thus remove what has been considered a major impediment to the use of simulation models for valuing financial instruments. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: This paper cautions against using expected utility theory for measuring insurance risk, because of the numerous inherent difficulties associated with it. Instead, an approach for loading gross premiums that is based on risk-measure functions is explored. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: This paper proposes a hypothesis that the negative public policy implications of durational rating strategies in the medical insurance market are caused by lack of prefunding of durational deterioration of experience and constitute a failure to maintain an important part of the original insuring promise. To solve the problem, a practical and simple reserving basis is proposed as a regulatory standard. Discussions of this paper are included.