Description: This paper, chapter VI of the 1987 Valuation Actuary Handbook, discusses a framework for the valuation of reserves and surplus in statutory financial statements, first providing a detailed section of definitions to clarify to clarify the terms used in the paper. The “new” environment of volatile interest rates is discussed, and the mathematics underlying ruin probabilities, and combinations of risks. Procedures for different products with different types of risks are discussed. Other topics include coordination of investment policy and product policy, aggregate reserves and surplus needed, use of simplifications, financial planning, and reinsurance.

Description: Editor's column for the September 2016 issue of NewsDirect.

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: In this paper the author develops techniques for measuring GAAP return on total capital by line of business, where total capital includes “benchmark surplus,” the amount of statutory surplus set aside, in addition to reserves, to support in-force business. The author also shows how GAAP returns relate to the internal rate of return the actuary may have calculated to describe expected profitability on a statutory basis. Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982 Volume 34.

Description: Quarterly update on regulatory trends of interest to financial reporting actuaries.

Description: Article AERF in The Actuary, May 1979, Volume 13, Number 5

Description: The article focuses on the need to develop a strategy for investing surplus resulting from the buildup of significant excess capital. The author discusses three principles on which a company can base its surplus investment strategy, including the risk/return preference of the client, attribution of surplus to the products and an investment strategy based on all company risks.

Description: The September 2014 Issue of the Financial Reporting Section's newsletter, The Financial Reporter

Description: The author, noting the inadequacy of traditional ‘rules of thumb’ used for profit objectives, demonstrates that, assuming a stock life insurance company’s objective is to maximize its current value, the profit objective can be expressed as maximizing ‘the present value of book profits per unit of limiting constraint.’ Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983 Volume 35.

Description: Discussion of how meaningful GAAP ROE is as a measurement of management performance or how well management has deployed capital over a reporting period.