Description: The asset portfolios of retirees’ serve many purposes including current income, liquidity, purchasing power, estate, tax minimization, and so on. Multiple objectives with different levels of importance lead to a complex asset allocation problem for retirees. Existing asset allocation methods normally focus on a subset of the multiple objectives of retirees in an approximate way. The simulation-based multiple objective asset allocation method objectively assesses each allocation plan against multiple objectives in a consistent way and provides a more holistic picture of possible outcomes. This information is critical for finding the optimal allocation plan. The optimization is based on the weighted performance relative to multiple objectives. At the same time, it requires more inputs and advanced modeling.

Description: Discusses the influence of market-consistent pricing proponents.

Description: Recent advances in mortality modeling have enabled applicant-specific quantification of mortality risk in life insurance applicants using laboratory and physical measurements. Relative to more conventional underwriting, this approach identifies a small population of significantly under-priced policy and a much larger, cross-subsidizing group whose risk is presently overestimated. Applicants placed in the highest percentile by this scoring methodology are more than 10X as likely to die in a given period as their demographic peers, and represent approximately 5% of short-term claims. Implications for product design are substantial in both the short- and long-term, as the possibilities for adverse selection grow, and the opportunity for fully individualized pricing raises the more distant prospect of products with as many rate classes as applicants.

Description: The Academy's Life Financial Reporting Committee announces the soon to be released practice note on EV. The Practice Note focuses on traditional and European Embedded Values, while leaving the thornier issues relating to Market Consistent Embedded Values for a future Note.

Description: The author explores and argues against the “evolution of thinking” and the position that actuarial thinking is a blend of all three modes of thinking, as discussed by Dave Ingram in the February/March 2012 issue of The Actuary.