Description: The CIA, SOA and Joint Risk Management Section of the CAS, CIA, and the SOA sponsored a whitepaper on the application of ERM at a federal government level.

Description: "Hear AM Best rating analysts discuss the rating process and the best capital adequacy ratio (BCAR), a quantitative foundation for AM Best’s assessment of carriers’ financial strength. The benchmarking of BCAR scores for various company types (national MCOs, BCBS plans, smaller regional plans) will be discussed. Look at how changes in investment and underwriting environment impacted the results over the past several years. Further, AM Best’s view of the quality of capital and various factors impacting the overall assessment of the balance sheet strength will be discussed. By attending this session, you will: Gain an understanding of AM Best’s building block approach to ratings and how the BCAR results fit into the process. Learn the differences between RBC and BCAR models. Learn how various factors—e.g. liquidity, financial flexibility, financial leverage, the org structure—impact the final AM Best assessment of health companies' capital."

Description: This article examines possible future directions in risk reporting by insurers, as they negotiate turbulent markets and move towards Solvency II compliance.

Description: Model Risk Management continues to be an evolving area for insurers to be considering. This has grown from both internal and external forces and may require a different format to previous model risk frameworks held by insurers. Furthermore, there are a number of trends emerging that we believe will drive an increased focus on insurer’s model risk management frameworks such as technology automation, ever increasing data sources, and the use of predictive models. Risk management and the development of models is an area where insurance companies have performed well in the past. It is expected that frameworks currently exist within companies; the governance, documentation, validation and control of model risk are likely to be well established practices. The challenge that insurers must consider is how well these have been adopted throughout the company for all models used to make business decisions and if the same level of rigor has consistently been applied. Regulation in a high-velocity actuarial environment will to be a challenge that actuaries must spearhead and must be proactive in guiding rule making to ensure continued innovation while putting data security and risk management first.

Description: An abbreviated version of a larger chart produced by the International Actuarial Association.

Description: Highlights from the 8th Intercompany Long-Term Care Insurance Conference held in March 2008, consisting of 56 sessions covering a range of long-term care insurance LTCI topics each with a track-specific focus.

Description: The management of the investments of an insurance enterprise has undergone a considerable evolution since the pioneering work of Redington in the mid 20th century. Best practices have evolved to incorporate ever more complex insurance liabilities, expanding investment asset classes and global market opportunities. Strategic asset allocation (SAA), liability driven investing, and other robust optimization approaches form the core of the professional management of insurance company investments.

Description: The Indian market holds tremendous potential for insurance products, especially in segments that remain untapped. The market is evolving in terms of market penetration, product innovation, regulatory changes, government initiatives, capital adequacy and customer experience. In this report, we have highlighted insurance trends in India based on insights gathered from practitioners' interviews, available research and literature, with a particular focus on the enterprise risk management (ERM) function of insurance companies.

Description: Enterprise risk management (ERM) is an orderly or guided conduct of an enterprise to deal with risks. For insurers, ERM requires full support and commitment of the senior management. ERM in the U.S. and Canada has evolved over the years into a complex ecosystem.

Description: Duration matching is a risk management strategy, commonly used in the insurance industry, where the duration (price sensitivity to a yield curve movement) of an asset portfolio is adjusted to be made equal to the duration of the liability. However, this approach has flaws. In this essay, I note some key failures of duration matching and offer a potential alternative.