Description: Explains how Dodd-Frank will impact activities of an insurance company in a number of ways.

Description: Enhanced or impaired annuities are life annuities underwritten to reflect annuitants' actual mortality. They are not currently prevalent in the U.S. or Canada, where life annuities assume low mortality and are thus unfair for impaired lives. This paper looks at the present annuity marketplace in the United States and Canada. It also reviews the underwriting and marketing of life annuities in the United Kingdom where “enhanced” life annuities are available for a broader cross section of the marketplace. It also reviews the use of P&C risk classification techniques and how they might apply to the annuity marketplace as well as potential legal constraints on broader risk classification for life annuities.

Description: This paper describes in detail each of five options available to small Texas employers wanting to purchase insurance for their employees. It then describes the advantages and disadvantages to the various players: carriers, employers, employees, and agents. It points out that each player will act in its own interest.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ (SOA) Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program in collaboration with the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) and the Organization of Latino Actuaries (OLA) are pleased to publish this essay collection on Aging and Retirement Issues in People of Different Races and Ethnicities. This effort explores how differences in wealth and retirement outcomes are experienced by people of different races and ethnicities and promotes a better understanding of the underlying issues surrounding the differences.

Description: When regulators examine financial institutions, one of the most important areas on which they focus is capital requirements. This essay argues that we can’t push for neither too high nor too low default probabilities. Regulate too high and you introduce rigidity to the system: you choke the economy. Regulate too low and you introduce softness in your foundations: they cannot for long sustain the economy. Therefore, regulation should be set to provide a 'window for business'.

Description: The focus of the essay is how to use regulatory requirements like ORSA to add competitive advantage. This is accomplished by leveraging the work done for regulators in a way that helps a firm make better decisions. Looking for concentrations of risk, model shortcomings and changing correlations are considered. Stress testing, counterparty risk and changing risk appetites are all topics that help the risk manager better understand the risks accepted. Finally, the paper suggests that the risk officer job should be split into a component that focuses on the process and risk mitigation techniques. The Chief Risk and Return Officer would reside in the strategic planning area and participate in strategic decision making for the firm. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: The Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program is pleased to release a collection of essays addressing the impact of inflation on retirement and retirement-related issues.

Description: Response to Life Insurance 2020 Foresight – A Call for Essays. An essay stating the author’s vision for the future of the life insurance sector.

Description: Some of the uncertainties related to catastrophe models are explored, leading to the suggestion that the actuary is well suited to understand and use these in the context of an ORSA exercise. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: The world of the local S&Ls, the partner-owned investment bank and Bretton Woods isn’t coming back. So what does that leave us to do next? Part of me is persuaded by the second law of thermodynamics, which says that existence gets progressively more and more disordered with the passage of time, since any work done to address the current crisis expends more energy and causes more disorder than it fixes.