Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 The panelists discuss the benefits of hedging variable annuity guarantees, the challenges they face and how they keep score.

Description: 2004 SOA Annual Meeting and Exhibit, New York. In this discussion, panelists looked at the economic cost of guarantees in VA products and explored some of the methods, concentrating on hedging, that companies are using to manage their exposures.

Description: There is no “industry standard” approach to managing the vega (volatility) risk inherent in Variable Annuity Guarantees, Fixed Indexed Annuities and other equity-linked obligations. In this session, we will introduce and analyze a range of reinsurance solutions, including full vega risk retention, full vega risk transfer and more sophisticated or custom structures that split the vega risk between the insurer and the reinsurer in various ways. We will also explore other approaches in bespoke risk coverage and show the impact of different assumptions on a generic “VA Guarantee Cost Estimate” that has been developed by Munich Re.

Description: In this session, a company will share its experience on managing risks underlying the equity-linked insurance guarantees and what lessons were learned over these years as it adapted its strategies to suit the current market environment.

Description: Representing a large indexed annuity writer, the speakers will discuss the growth and evolution of the market for index annuity products. Moreover, the challenges that growth has introduced and how those challenges are being met. While much of the market consists of simple, accumulation-oriented S&P 500 based strategies with 0% return floors, a significant portion of industry sales come from more complex products with highly customized index strategies and other features, such as living benefit guarantees. Attendees will gain a broad understanding of the indexed annuity market, product and features, operational difficulties in risk management arising from product design, and how actuarial and hedge professionals are managing these issues.

Description: This article describes how different types of regression models used for fund modeling can affect the variable annuity's risk exposure report and attribution report.

Description: Why Write Variable Products When You Can Put the Money Directly into the Stock Market?

Description: This paper discusses the actuarial aspects of state regulation of individual variable annuities. Focus is on regulation of interest rates, expense and mortality guarantees, grace period and nonforfeiture provisions, and transfers of surplus to and from separate accounts. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1968, Vol. 20, Pt. 1, No. 58.

Description: In this paper the authors present a proposed solution to some difficult problems which have plagued those who have designed variable benefit plans. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1963, Vol. 15, Pt. 1, No. 43.

Description: This paper discusses alternatives open to an actuary in the writing of a variable annuity contract. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1969, Vol. 21, Pt. 1, No. 61.