Description: Summary of Part II of the survey of Appointed Actuaries, sponsored by the American Academy of Actuaries Committee on Life Insurance Financia1 Reporting and the Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Section, which asked appointed actuary various questions on methodology and assumptions employed for asset adequacy testing.

Description: Chairperson's thoughts on the evolving nature of actuarial modeling, and results of a survey.

Description: A review of the book Second Book of Running, James Fixx presents studies that show a cause-and-effect relation between exercise and cardiovascular health.

Description: Chronicles the two-year history of the Committee on Life Insurance Company Valuation Principles, COLICVP, and looks ahead to the future.

Description: This article describes a report by the GAO that was prepared at the request of Congressman Wolff. Robert J. Myers, the author of the article, that the GAO report is “an excellent summary of the various recent studies on the financial problems confronting the OASDI system. Four of the studies have been recently reviewed in The Actuary: An Actuarial Audit of the Social Security System by Kaplan and Weil April 1975, the 1975 Trustees Report June 1975, Report of the Panel on Social Security Financing to the Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate May 1975, and Reports of the Quadrennial Advisory Council on Social Security October 1975. Also considered in the report are editorial comments by The Wall Street Journal which first impelled Congressman Wolff to request the GAO Report.”

Description: In an effort to build a bridge between epidemiological and actuarial modeling, this paper analyzes possible financial arrangements made against expenses resulted from medical treatments given to insured patients. Based on classical compartment models, the first part of this paper designs insurance policies for susceptible participants facing the risk of infection and formulates the financial obligations of both parties using actuarial methodology. For practical purposes, the second part employs a variety of numerical methods for calculating premiums and reserves. The last part illustrates the methods by designing insurance products for the Great Plague in Eyam and the SARS Epidemic in Hong Kong.

Description: Discussion of FAS 133 Implementation Issue B36 relating to the implications for the financial reporting of modco and similar reinsurance treaties where the assuming company assumes some investment risk from assets still owned by the ceding company.

Description: This article discusses Internal Revue Code, ‘IRC,’ Sections 7702 and 7702A with respect to the implementation of the 2001 CSO Mortality Table, which must be used in the calculations for policies issued on or after January 1, 2006. “The insurance industry has requested guidance from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service on the proper application of the current computational rules to the 2001 CSO Mortality Table but, to date, such guidance has not been provided. Therefore, the Taxation Section established the 2001 CSO Maturity Age Task Force, the members of which authored this article, to propose methodologies that would be actuarially acceptable under Sections 7702 and 7702A of the Code for calculations under contracts that do not provide for actual maturity before age 100.” This article summarizes the task force recommendations.

Description: Discusses the emerging issue of non-formulaic reserves, which surrounds principles-based reserving, in a Q&A format.

Description: As companies implement PBR, this article outlines challenges regarding the treatment of accelerated underwriting under VM-20 and in light of future innovation.