Description: This session discusses current short-term disability benefits, recent market trends, pricing and risk management issues. Includes a discussion on voluntary benefits, self-funding and packaging with long-term disability. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 2, Session 93

Description: Attendees gain exposure to various approaches for effective surplus management for health entities. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 2, Session 91

Description: This paper discusses the reasons for the trend toward phased retirement and looks at the legal and actuarial aspects of phased retirement as they apply to a simple defined-benefit plan. It is important for US pension law to be modified to facilitate phased retirement and include safeguards to protect workers as they make these lifetime decisions. From the Retirement Implications of Demographic and Family Change Symposium, June 2002.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Discusses basic considerations and the process of an international acquisition or merger.

Description: Panelists address current issues of critical illness products including underwriting, state filing, distribution and marketing. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 1, Session 33

Description: In this paper, we propose measures of the risk that the value of the liabilities becomes larger than the value of the assets, and this especially for insurance companies. We study probabilities of mismatching and a degree of mismatching in unsegmented and multidimensional models of the balance, in which we stress the influence of interest rates on the active and passive side of the balance.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 and Beyond symposium 2002. Discussion of two papers, 'Approaches and Experiences in Projecting Mortality Patterns for the Oldest Old' by Buettner and 'Using Dynamic Reliability in Estimating Mortality at Advanced Ages' by Lin. The first paper discusses the UN methodology for projecting mortality above age 80 and presents another approach for addressing the problem of table closing. The second paper suggests a new statistical model for fitting and estimation of mortality rates at advanced ages.

Description: Using Taiwan Complete Life Tables as the data source, a model is developed using reliability theory and the results of the proposed model are compared to Gompertz’s law.

Description: Discussion of three papers presented at Living to 100 and Beyond symposium. Papers discussed: ' The Roles of Aging, Longevity Determination and Pathology on Human Life Span and Life Expectation' by Hayflick, 'Plastic Omega' by Held, and 'Underlying and Multiple Cause Mortality at Advanced Ages: United State 1980 - 1998' by Stallard. The first paper is an overview on aging, the second paper is a survey of aging research and the third paper discusses underlying and multiple cause mortality.

Description: This paper addresses issues and techniques for advanced age mortality study using data mining techniques, a new technology on the horizon with great actuarial potential. Seven factors were considered in this study, the influences of these factors on advanced-age mortality distribution were identified and models were derived for projecting advanced age mortality.

Description: Why More U.S.A. Life Insurance Companies Are Considering Economic Value as an Additional Internal Accounting System by Armand de Palo from The Financial Reporter, December 2001, Issue No. 48.

Description: This paper addresses the allocation of solvency capital in multi- line financial businesses. Although this paper is uniformly applicable to financial enterprises of all types, the terminology in the paper is mainly that of insurance. The TailVaR risk measure is extended in a natural way to allocating capital to each of the business units. This method of allocation allocates capital in a way that is invariant over the method of decomposing the enterprise into business units. Analytic results are derived in the case of multivariate Normal risks. The key result of this paper is that the TailVaR-based proportional allocation of total required capital is identical to that based on mean-variance considerations analogous to the CAPM in the case of the multivariate Normaldistribution.

Description: This paper reports on the findings of a working group established in 1999 by the SOA's Finance Practice Area to look at how the insurance industry measures and monitors risk through risk position reporting. Also the working group established industry standard practices in risk position reporting and reported on a number of areas for possible improvement in such reporting.

Description: This session at the SOA 2001 Annual Meeting discusses variable annuities with guaranteed living benefits including an overview of the market and risk management practices from the viewpoints of a reinsurer, including hedging options, and a rating agency.

Description: This session 160 TS of the 2001 SOA Annual Meeting explains Guaranteed minimum income benefits GMIBs, guaranteed minimum accumulation benefits GMABs, guaranteed minimum death benefits GMDBs, and death benefits designed to cover the approximate income tax on the gain in the contract all provide additional protection for the purchaser, but they may also bring added risk to the insurer. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 3, Session 160TS.

Description: This session focuses on the financial issues related to income products. A panel of experts discusses pricing, investment, and risk management in underwriting payout annuities. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 3, Session 80PD of the New Orleans Annual Meeting.

Description: This session 75PD of the New Orleans Annual Meeting analyzes derivatives contained in various insurance products and techniques used to hedge the derivative exposure. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 3, Session 75PD.

Description: The panel at this session of the SOA 2001 Annual Meeting discusses the basics of embedded value [EV], how EV can be used to measure an insurance company's results, and current best practices.

Description: This session 84I of the 2001 SAO Annual Meeting in New Orleans is about how many insurers are migrating toward Web-based interactive underwriting systems in order to economize and streamline the underwriting process. This requires some radically different techniques well beyond the time-honored traditional approaches. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol 27, No. 3

Description: A presentation on the principle of equivalent utility from the 2001 ARCH. Contains both the static and dynamic model as well as examples with exponential utility.

Description: This session 29PD of the Toronto Spring Meeting describes the stochastic modeling framework developed by Canada for valuation and the practical issues encountered in its implementation. An update on developments in the valuation of similar features in the U.S. is also provided to allow a comparison of the approaches being taken in the two countries. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 2, Session 29PD

Description: Panelists at this session of the SOA 2001 Toronto Spring Meeting discuss incorporating reinsurance costs into the pricing of their retail products. Panelists also discuss the different effects of various reinsurance arrangements.

Description: This session 112 PD of the Toronto Spring Meeting covers principles developed during the Unified Valuation System UVS project of the American Academy of Actuaries with support from the Society of Actuaries and the Financial Reporting Section of the SOA. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 2.

Description: This session at the SOA 2001 Toronto Spring Meeting focuses on FAS 133, which defines accounting for derivatives, embedded options and hedging activities. Details of FAS 133 and implementation issues are discussed.

Description: At this session 114 PD of the Toronto Spring Meeting, participants learn how to create efficient simulation models in Excel for various problems arising in finance and insurance. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 2, Session

Description: 2001 SOA Spring Meeting, Toronto. A wide range of tools exists in both the insurance and banking industries to measure and mitigate exposure to risk. For some risks, given their nature and volatility, real-time measurement and monitoring has become a necessity. This session focused on the risk management tools and techniques that measure and mitigate exposure associated with products that have embedded options.

Description: This session at the SOA 2001 Toronto Spring Meeting offers an overview of stochastic pricing including stochastic variables, equity market models, interest rate models and policyholder behavior. An example is given using a variable annuity product.

Description: This session 13TS of the Dallas Spring Meeting provides a basic background on derivatives and discusses how derivatives can be used in insurance and pension investment portfolios, how they are valued, and how they can impact the long-term financial situation of a portfolio.From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 1, Session 13TS

Description: Chapter 8 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes MINT, or Modeling Income in the Near Term, which is one of three retirement income and social security models now being developed in the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics of the Social Security Administration. The accessibility, ease of use, cost as well as the strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed.

Description: This presentation is a panel discussion, session 90PD, from the 2000 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 15-18 in Chicago. The panelists, including a chief technology officer and a Microsoft employee, introduce actuaries to XML, discussing the origins of XML and its relation to HTML. They discuss how to model with XML to achieve independence between platforms and systems. The speakers present XML applications, including online insurance, employee benefits and mathematics. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 26, No. 3.

Description: When Is It Right To Use Arbitrage-Free Scenarios? by Stephen Britt from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, September 2000, Issue No. 35.

Description: Blazing the Path for a Unified Valuation System by David K. Sandberg from The Financial Reporter, June 2000, Issue No. 42.

Description: From session 23PD at a meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Diego, CA, June 22-23, 2000. Panelists discuss various techniques employed by insurers for managing the risks inherent in their variable annuity portfolios.

Description: The Society of Actuaries seeks to provide actuaries of life insurance companies with a systematic approach for estimating the adverse effects of economic developments that could impede insurer performance. The performance measurements include 1. Return on Equity, 2. Return on Assets, and 3. Increase in Surplus and Capial. Toward that end, this study combines market and economic factors with insurer-specific data to form dynamic financial models of life insurers. Empirical analysis is based on annual data from 1985 through 1995 for 1,593 life insurers. By identifying important exogenous and insurer-specific factors related to life insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. The study also identifies and describes several web sites that provide access to relevant economic and financial data. Also see the SOA website research page for excel spread sheets that have the charts that should be inserted in this report

Description: By identifying specific exogenous and insurer specific factors related to life-insurer performance, this study provides a basis for actuaries to build dynamic financial models for individual insurers. The Life Insurers performance measurements are 1. Return on Equity, 2. Return on Assets and 3. Increase in Capital and Surplus. This paper has been submitted to the North American Actuarial Journal for publication considerations. This documents the specific charts embedded in the report. Please see the SOA web site for the detail report.

Description: Segregated Funds Seminar Illuminates Equity Guarantees Risks by G. Thomas Mitchell from The Financial Reporter, February 2000, Issue No. 41.

Description: In this paper we compute the conditional and unconditional probability of ruin for an individual who wishes to consume a fixed periodic amount from an initial endowment invested in a portfolio earning a stochastic rate of return. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.

Description: The purpose of this article is to explore the causes and effects of FAS 97 DPAC amortization revisions and to encourage the preparation of analysis that will assist in the interpretation and communication of results for management users of GAAP product line financial reports involving such revisions. From Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Section Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: Canterbury Tales of Fair Value Fair Value of Life Insurance Seminar—March 1999 by Mike McLaughlin & Joan Lamm-Tennant, Ph.D. from The Financial Reporter, October 1999, Issue No. 40.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. The panel discussed how the actuarial profession may contribute to the quantification and management of various types of risks that insurers and other financial service providers assume.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. This panel expanded on earlier research to examine the potential costs of long-term guarantees, transfer risk modeling techniques, and the formulation of practical strategies to manage investment accumulation products.

Description: This paper expands on the traditional three-factor interest, mortality, and expenses dividend contribution formula to propose a new dividend structure. The structure and formula are derived from the most generalized equation of equilibrium, and each dividend class is treated as an ongoing microcosm. From Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: Chapter 11 from the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. PIMS is a microsimulation model that produces a distribution of PBGC’s exposure over a defined time interval. This chapter describes the major components of PIMS, the data types in PIMS, the PIMS simulation process, simulation activities, and current output.

Description: This paper attempts to advance practice and methodology with respect to life insurance company valuation. From Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: Dynamic Financial Condition Analysis Update by James F. Reiskytl from The Financial Reporter, October 1999, Issue No. 40.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. This panel explored ways in which disability insurance underwriting guidelines must be closely linked to product design and sales methods. Panelists discussed a number of specific issues, including emerging illnesses, the protective value of various testing procedures, the role of financial underwriting, and the links between product, price, and underwriting.

Description: Setting the X Factor Percentile— Commentary by G. Thomas Mitchell from The Financial Reporter, October 1999, Issue No. 40.

Description: This paper reviews validation for the model of a life insurance company's liabilities with actual company data. Two methods are reviewed: static and dynamic validation. From Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. The panelists provided a brief description of the guaranteed benefits offered on Variable Annuities in both the U.S. and Canada, followed by an in-depth comparison of current issues, including risk assessment, reserving, and cash-flow testing.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to present to the actuarial profession a stochastic investment model which can be used for simulations extending for many years ahead. Discussed in the paper are the general reasons for choosing the style of model, the general model and how to use it, the assumptions and the sensitivity of model to the assumptions made and the possible applications in the investment and actuarial fields.

Description: 1999 Valuation Actuary Symposium, Los Angeles. This session discussed issues of particular interest to valuation actuaries in smaller insurance companies. Topics included: 1. Regulation XXX. 2. Actuarial Guidelines 33 and 34. 3. Illustration actuary. 4. Current regulatory proposals. 5. Proposed new Section 7 requirements. 6. C-3 RBC Based on Cash-Flow Testing. 7. Use of outside consultants.

Description: 1999 Valuation Actuary Symposium, Los Angeles. This session focused on how the industry has responded to the financial management challenges associated with Equity-Indexed products. Topics included: 1. Investment hedging and market volatility. 2. Product modeling. 3. Participation rate competition. 4. Product evolution. 5. GAAP for Derivatives - FAS 133.

Description: Chapter 10 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes the Macroeconomic-Demographic Model of the U.S. Retirement Income System used to investigate alternative approaches to investment of the OASDI trust funds.

Description: From session 75CS at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999, Presenters identify issues and challenges faced by the valuation actuary when performing cash-flow testing on equity-indexed and variable products.

Description: In January 1998, the NAIC Life and Health Actuarial Technical Task Force asked the Society of Actuaries to address disability reserving issues. The reason for this request was that the NAIC had received reports that statutory reserves based on the current morbidity tables frequently fail the tests of adequacy and reasonableness. Further, they requested that this review extend to contract and claim reserves and across all lines of disability insurance - group and individual, and short- and long-term. They also requested help in establishing when it is appropriate for a company to use its own experience in valuation. This report represents a recommendation to the NAIC for an interim update to the 1985 CIDA Table for Individual Disability claim reserves. This zip file contains the final report and appendices.

Description: 1999 SOA Regional Meeting, Atlanta. In this session on financial performance measurement in life insurance companies, the panelists discussed: 1. Value-added financial analysis. 2. Performance management using transfer pricing. 3. Investment benchmarking.

Description: Table of Contents for the May 1999 Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries

Description: The financing for Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, rather than the full-reserve system utilized in private insurance, and the financing conditions of the trust funds have more uncertainty than does the reserve in private insurance. Traditionally, the financing conditions have been decided by a deterministic approach using economic and demographic assumptions that rely upon negotiation among experts at various government agencies. This paper proposes an econometric approach, called the 'co-integrated multivariate time series model,' for forecasting the financing conditions of the trust funds. This stochastic approach not only establishes the interrelationships but also clarifies the co-movements among the economic assumptions. Furthermore, it helps analyze the original assumptions rather than the differences of the nonstationary assumption variables adopted by researchers in the past that are more difficult to interpret. Use of this approach permits the assessment of the probability distribution of the future balance of trust funds instead of assessing estimates from the three alternative deterministic assumptions. This distribution will provide policy-makers with a better assessment of stability of the trust funds.

Description: Design and future maintenance of an asset portfolio backing a new line of business is critical for proper asset and liability management for that business. Most portfolio optimization methods utilize linear or quadratic programming and require the user to specify the asset and liability attributes and cash flows into the program. The programmer must also supply an objective function to allow the program to find the optimal asset mix for the associated liabilities. Two problems with this approach are that the liability cash flows are fairly static and that one must frequently rebalance the portfolio. An alternative approach would be to develop a corporate model of both the assets and liabilities and incorporate various economic scenarios as input into the model. Asset strategies would be measured against a specific objective function that is calculated by the corporate model. Unfortunately, the majority of maximization algorithms available are very time consuming, and obtaining a reasonable portfolio mix becomes impractical. This paper overcomes this difficulty by using a very rapid optimization method from the chemical engineering profession called the Floppy Triangle. The paper includes an example of the use of this process to determine an optimal portfolio. It also discusses modifications of the algorithm that is required when the shorting of assets is not permitted.

Description: This paper sets the task of pricing insurance products in the larger framework of company planning and management. A generalized description of the pricing function, applicable to any insurance company project.

Description: This paper presents an algorithm for valuing American options in a path simulation model. It demonstrates the accuracy by an example involving a put option on a non-dividend-paying stock for which the exact premium could be determined. It shows how the use of simulation models can be useful in valuing a broker-dealer's derivative book and analyzing the asset-liability condition of financial intermediaries.

Description: This paper introduces and illustrates a new version of the Monte Carlo method that has attractive properties for the numerical valuation of derivatives. Quasi-Monte Carlo methods use deterministic sequences that are quasi-random sequences that result in better convergence and deterministic error bounds.

Description: This paper analyzes the accuracy of the principal models used by U.S. insurance regulators to predict insolvencies in the property-liability insurance industry and compares these models with a relatively new solvency testing approach- cash flow simulation. Specifically, the authors compare the risk-based capital [RBC] system introduced by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners [NAIC] in 1994, the 'FAST' [audit ratio] system used by the NAIC, and a cash flow simulation model developed by the authors. Both the RBC and FAST systems are static, ratio based approaches to solvency testing, whereas the cash flow simulation model implements dynamic financial analysis. Logistic regression analysis is used to test the models for a large sample of solvent and insolvent property-liability insurers, using data from the years 1990-1992 to predict insolvencies over three-year prediction horizons. The authors find that the FAST system dominates RBC as a static method for predicting insurer insolvencies. Further, they find the cash flow simulation variables add significant explanatory power to the regressions and lead to more accurate solvency prediction than the ratio-based models taken alone.

Description: This paper shows that the Esscher transform is also an efficient technique for valuing derivative securities if the logarithms of the prices of the primitive securities are governed by certain stochastic processes with stationary and independent increments. Two applications are presented, the first for valuing a European call option and the second for pricing derivative securities of multiple risky assets.

Description: In session 132 PD of the New York Annual Meeting panelists discuss the content and status of the draft NAIC Actuarial Guideline ZZZ and the work of the AAA Task Force on Variable Products with Guaranteed Living Benefits. The Black-Scholes option pricing method is also covered. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: In session 131 PD of the New York Annual Meeting panelists discuss ways to maximize the usefulness of value-added methodology, especially the leveraging of value-added information. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol . 24, No. 3.

Description: In session 3PD of the New York Annual Meeting the panel discusses solutions such as data software and interface standards as possible solutions to the problem of having many different data storage and analysis systems that don't speak to each other. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: In session 8PD of the New York Annual Meeting the panel discussion focuses on a range of problems encountered in managing a book of derivatives supporting an existing equity-indexed portfolio. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: In this session 94PD of the SOA Annual Meeting in New York the panel examines the communications link between the technical world of actuarial measurement based on cash-flow testing and the real world or daily and strategic decision making at top levels of insurance companies. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: This session at the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium looks at how companies can use the cash-flow testing structure for additional analysis and be more useful to the managment of the company. The concept of transfer pricing within a life company is explained.

Description: Chapter 6 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes DYNACAN, a dynamic microsimulation model developed and maintained in the Office of the Chief Actuary OCA of the Canada Pension Plan. It simulates the basic demographic and economic events relevant for calculation of CPP contributions and benefits. The strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibility and ease of use.

Description: This session at the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium discusses issues related to variable and fixed deferred annuity modeling.

Description: This presentation from three state insurance department actuaries at the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium Proceedings looks at a variety of topics from the regulator's viewpoint including asset adequacy testing, asumptions used, and regulation XXX among others.

Description: This is the table of contents for the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium.

Description: This session at the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium discusses the modeling of equity-indexed annuities including the assets and derivatives associated with the annuities.