Description: 2020 and 2021 presented numerous challenges to life and annuity product development actuaries. External forces required carriers to rethink underwriting requirements and risk assessment in real time. Alterations in regulatory frameworks and statutory requirements forced changes to product development priorities while alterationsin the work environment forced changes in how work routines were structured. This session will bring together a group of life and annuity stakeholders to discuss how they addressed these and other challenges, and how their work will be impacted going forward.

Description: The NAIC Innovation work group has set out 10 ideas for improving the LTC insurance market. This article discusses and critiques those ideas.

Description: Article on the history of the Long Term Care Discussion Group, a Washington DC-based venue for discussing long-term care and related issues for over 20 years.

Description: The presenters will discuss recent developments related to the federal qualification and taxation of life insurance and annuity contracts. Among other topics, there will be a focus on comparing and contrasting life insurance product qualification in the U.S. under IRC sections 7702 and 7702A versus qualification in Canada under the 'exempt test' of the Income Tax Act, which has been revised in recent years. Discussion will include comparisons of Canadian provisions to U.S. definition of life insurance and Modified Endowment Contract concepts.

Description: There are practical and conceptual aspects underlying (re)insurability. Practically, something or someone is insurable if an insurer is willing provide insurance coverage at a price the applicant is willing to pay. In contrast, a conceptual view of (re)insurabiity incorporates a range of more complex factors usually considered in the insurance process. This article discusses these two approaches.

Description: One of the Health Section's key focuses in 2019 is Initiative 18/11. Last year the SOA joined forces with the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) to answer the nagging question: “What can we do about the cost of healthcare?” A steering group has been formed to lead a research project as to what managed care companies can do to reduce costs without sacrificing quality. The project [called Managed Care 3.0 in the 18/11 paper] will examine historical models that have worked as well as investigate the impact that new technologies and care models may have on cost and quality, with the goal of better understanding the current environment and identify­ing potential risks and opportunities.

Description: Update on Federal Tax Issues Under the 2001 CSO Mortality Tables

Description: For decades the negotiated prices between health care providers, insurance carriers, and networks have been tightly-guarded trade secrets. That's quickly changing. Health care price transparency is now bipartisan-supported law. Gag clauses have been banned. Starting in January 2021 hospitals were subject to new rules requiring disclosure of the payment rates they receive from health plans to both consumers and the general public. So far, compliance has been mixed. Similar rules for payers become effective later in 2022 and 2023 for health plans and consumers. While entrenched interests are doing their best to stall transparency, unless the laws change, transparency is going to happen and will rock the commercial health insurance market, providing the long awaited opportunity for meaningful health care cost reductions. Learn more about price transparency laws and regulations, examine rocky implementation to-date, and discuss the role of self-insured employers in leading the market changes that will emerge from price transparency. By attending this session, you will be able to: - Name the applicable price transparency laws and rules. - See transparency as more than a list of new compliance requirements and consumer tools. - Anticipate that the downstream impacts of transparency on commercial health insurance will be profound. - Appreciate the increased power of self-insured employers.

Description: Currently there are ten states in the U.S. —Rhode Island, California, New Jersey, New York, Washington, DC; Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon and Colorado —that have enacted Paid Family Leave. Paid Family leave is an employee funded state insurance program that provides wage replacement to eligible workers when they take time off of work to care for a seriously ill family member or to bond with a new child. Who pays the taxes? The employer or the employee? How will this effect short term disability benefit offerings in the work place? How does a Paid Family Leave plan get implemented? Is it up to the employee to file for the benefit through the unemployment office or does the employer file? At the state level, how is paid family leave reserved for? How is it administered? What job protections are there? How does this work with the Family Medical Leave Act? Get these and more questions answered. By attending this session, you should have an understanding of the state Paid Family Leave programs, what it means to future short term disability plans, and how the state accounts for this program.

Description: A call for project proposals to study the impacts of climate-induced migration on various areas which can influence the delivery of services and availability of insurance coverages.