Description: Drivers for mortality are apparently linked to socio-economic differentials within different societal groups. Actuaries are not the only profession interested in unravelling the mystery of why different groups within society experience such different mortality rates. The author gives examples from occupational pension plans in Canada, the UK and Germany.

Description: In the June 2014 issue of Product Matters, Doug Robbins of Pacific Life authored a fascinating article entitled “Velocity of Diversification.” Therein, he proposed a pricing measure that describes the “…speed at which confidence in profitability is attained”. How can stochastic modeling of mortality be applied to analyze the velocity of diversification, and how would that measure be affected by volatility in the underlying assumptions?

Description: Social Security provides financial protection by annuitizing retirement. This is not enough for many. My idea creates an additional annuity via Social Security.

Description: SECURE 2.0 included provisions that improve the ability of insurers to serve those who own qualified annuities. Several previously disallowed distribution methods are now allowed. These changes should increase the availability and desirability by contract owners to choose a payout annuity compared to required minimum distributions. An insurer considering enhancing qualified annuitization offerings might follow the approach outlined to potentially increase qualified annuitization sales and assist contract owners in protecting their principal more directly than previously.

Description: New Zealand is about to launch its first variable annuity with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits. The product design is mindful of the lessons from the financial crisis in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Description: This article discusses sessions from the product development section post symposium seminar on product development - beginning to end. Sessions included product specific topics like term, universal life with secondary guarantees, and indexed products. Panel discussions included inforce management and advanced modeling issues.

Description: The objective of this article is to help indexed annuity writers understand the pricing practices and ALM strategies used by their peers in the industry, especially in light of the prevailing low interest rate environment and a possible rise in interest rates.

Description: Hear from the chairperson on themes in the October 2018 issue of Product Matters published by the Product Development Section.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits, indexed variable annuities, etc. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approach to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications with regard to the difficulty of risk management.

Description: The article describes the 2017 Redington Prize-winning paper "Lapse-and-Reentry in Variable Annuities", by Thorsten Moenig and Nan Zhu, FSA.