Description: Using basic actuarial principles to develop a reasonable spending budget and to keep spending/savings on track to meet financial objectives.

Description: This paper builds on the analysis of Berin and Lofgren of 'Financial Accounting Standard No. 87', with regards to pension plans. The relationships between the quantities defined in FAS 87 are further explored, and the analysis is extended to cover FAS 88, 'Employers Accounting for Settlements and Curtailments of Defined-Benefit Pension Plans and for Termination Benefits'.

Description: A discussion of the use of stochastic modeling in Embedded Value financial reporting

Description: Actuaries have traditionally recognized the links between risk and value, and in recent years have begun to incorporate aspects of modern financial economic theory into their traditional valuation and risk management approaches. As a result, there has been an increasing trend in the incorporation of explicit market-based risk adjustments into valuations, whether for internal or external purposes. The use of market-based metrics to reflect risk in valuations is becoming increasingly widespread—in fact, major external standard setters, including FASB, IASB, CFO Forum and the various parties setting standards for Solvency II, have prescribed varying levels of use of market-based metrics to measure risk in valuations. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: By necessity, attributions of financial processes require approximations. Tools used for approximations include Aumann-Shapley, time step, step-through, average step-through, partial derivative, and average partial derivative. Significantly non-linear paths can cause problems during attribution. Time (theta) and market factors must be handled concurrently. Typically contractual factors can be handled separately. Average Step-Through, Aumann-Shapley and Aumann-Shapley-3 points perform the best given the same time period. Attribution should be done with fairly small time steps as opposed to using a lot of points in the Aumann-Shapley calculation, but using Aumann-Shapley-3 points as a last step has some advantages.

Description: The article compares the return characteristics, return, volatility, and correlation, to that of other possible selections as a DC safe option. It concludes that stable value is pareto superior to all other safe option candidates, and is therefore the optimal safe option.

Description: Article discusses VM-31 requirements and actuarial report overview.

Description: Reflections of a Regulatory Actuary by Larry Gorski

Description: Cassie He and Kabeer Jhaveri invite Michael Frank, a health, accident and life actuary with 24 years of experience, to talk about his career experience, his insightful views on the room to growth for actuaries and also the changes happening to the profession.

Description: This paper compares the development of the more flexible reporting for pension commitments by the sponsoring employer in Australia to the standard-driven reporting in the United States and the United Kingdom. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.