Description: View the Spring 2016 Quantitative Finance and Investments Core Formula Sheet

Description: Survey for Society of Actuaries Experience Studies Summary Results

Description: This article delves into the challenges and opportunities of the Asian insurance market, focusing on insurance investment management.

Description: February 2016 issue of Product Matters!

Description: This article provides background on managed target volatility funds and how they can be used for variable annuities and the mitigation of gap risk.

Description: In most countries in the developed world and also in a number of other countries, the population is aging. What impact will a changing demographic structure have, if any, on economic factors such as growth and inflation? This question is of vital importance to actuaries who use demographic and economic projections in the pricing and valuation of products, design of risk management solutions, and in opinions regarding the sustainability of social programs. This research report, funded by the Society of Actuaries (SOA), provides background on research in this area and offers insights that may be of use to practicing actuaries.

Description: A review of product and sales trends for variable, indexed and fixed annuities against the current backdrop of low interest rates and record equity market valuations

Description: Thoughts from Chair of the Investment Section Council

Description: Insurance companies use derivatives to manage and mitigate risks that are inherent in their investment or liability portfolios, including traditional asset/liability matching, dynamic hedging and static hedging. The authors explore how Solvency II will influence life insurers’ hedging strategies.

Description: February issue of The Stepping Stone

Description: The February/March 2016 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: No matter what you do, you are in sales in some way. The word, "sales" or "selling" brings up negative connotations for many people. It may be helpful to think of it as "influence". Whether you're a sales professional, coach, consultant or executive - there are key stakeholders in your world you need to influence. To persuade successfully and non-manipulatively, it's important to understand five key principles of influence. Principle #3 is covered here.

Description: February 2016

Description: Summary of Investment Council sponsored meetings as 2015 annual meeting

Description: In this article, the author examines how a seemingly impossible event becomes a harsh or startling reality.

Description: January issue of International News

Description: Read the Janaury 2016 issue of In the Public Interest

Description: Challenge to actuarial business as usual in re public pension plans with a focus on setting actuarial standards of practice

Description: In this article, we provide practical guidance for understanding how to develop and apply an effective risk appetite statement.

Description: Risk Management, the newsletter of the Joint Risk Management Section.

Description: New Zealand is about to launch its first variable annuity with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits. The product design is mindful of the lessons from the financial crisis in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Description: In this article we take a look at some of the requirements practitioners will need to consider as they implement a framework for managing the long‑term implications of C-ROSS as they pursue their capital efficiency agenda.

Description: This article highlights some of OSFI’s expectations regarding the ORSA process, and provides general feedback and observations from OSFI’s reading of 2014 ORSA reports (including KMR) and discussions with insurers.

Description: In this paper, the authors assess the value of a GSA-type annuity within a retiree's portfolio.

Description: The article explores the use of economic capital modeling to deliver value to clients by improving the financial security of many individual lives around the world in a cost-effective way.

Description: December 2015 issue of The Financial Reporter

Description: Health Watch, Issue 79, December 2015, Health Watch

Description: The next evolution of actuarial systems in the U.S. will likely be a move toward a single system solution. This article defines a single system solution and illustrates how models can be shared across actuarial functions, the potential benefits of a single system solution, and describes potential mitigation strategies to address typical actuarial concerns.

Description: Looks at free and inexpensive resources for the novice in predictive analytics, covering the data analysis theory as well as the most commonly used languages/software used in the field.

Description: Abstracts from the latest edition of the North American Actuarial Journal

Description: After a summary of FASB decisions in their GAAP Targeted Improvements project, this article describes several issues that will need to be resolved either by the board or in actuarial practice and argues for seeking solutions that provide meaningful results without overly complicating valuation processes.

Description: How predictive analytics techniques can be used in the health practice.

Description: December 2015 issue of The Modeling Platform

Description: Review of 2015 from perspective of the Health Section

Description: Presentation given to the Chicago Actuarial Association in October 2015 on the activities of the Committee on Post Retirement Needs and Risks.

Description: PowerPoint slides of presentation given at Gerontological Society of America.

Description: The Stepping Stone issue 60, November 2015

Description: The professor gave a presentation regarding the tour of the forces of innovation that are disrupting so many traditional business models/industries. Why does he think that the Insurance/Banking markets are still following what are essentially traditional models

Description: An in-depth look at how actuarial skills and competencies picked up in the field can be applied to topics that aren't traditionally actuarial - with this article focusing on card counting in the casino game blackjack.

Description: Terra Brasis Re is a local multi-line Brazilian Reinsurance company operating since 2012. Terra Report is a comprehensive report that analyses and provides insightful comments regarding the Brazilian reinsurance market on a quarterly basis both in English and Portuguese. It is akin to a financial report provided by the Investment houses on specific industries and Terra Report has received high praise both within Brazil and internationally. The SOA Newsletter Reinsurance News recently interviewed Rodrigo on the development of this report.

Description: November 2015 Reinsurance News

Description: To persuade successfully and non-manipulatively, it’s important to understand five key principles of influence. In this four-part series, I’ll be covering these five principles that are based on human psychology and behavior. Let’s look at the first two now.

Description: The rapid pace of change within the reinsurance sector over the past few years has given way to the permutations of a “new reality” that is being shaped by abundant capacity from traditional and alternative sources.

Description: The October/November 2015 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: October issue of Taxing Times

Description: The article focuses on the use of predictive analytics in the development of experience studies, pros and cons of using predictive analytics versus traditional techniques, and the implications for setting assumptions and improving profitability.

Description: At the beginning of this year, Representative Dave Camp (R-MI) retired from the House of Representatives after 12 terms, the last two terms serving as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. Chairman Camp has played a central role in the national conversation on tax reform, primarily through a series of discussion drafts addressing international tax reform, financial products tax reform, small business tax reform and, most recently, a comprehensive tax reform discussion draft that we explored in a special edition of TAXING TIMES last fall. Kristin Norberg, TAXING TIMES editor, recently sat down with Chairman Camp to talk about his career in the House, the development of the Tax Reform Act of 2014, and some of its potential impacts on the insurance industry.

Description: October 2015 issue of CompAct, the technology section's member benefit newsletter.

Description: Presents the results of the 2014 Life Reinsurance Survey - an annual survey showing new business writings and in force figures by reinsurance company for the North American life reinsurance industry (US and Canada)

Description: 2015 Variable Annuity Guaranteed Benefits Survey

Description: NewsDirect September 2015 Issue

Description: Full Issue Financial Reporter Issue 102

Description: Examination of full surrender and benefit utilization industry experience for Variable Annuities with and without Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits. Part 1 of 3 articles focuses on full surrenders and building a dynamic surrender function using predictive modeling tools.

Description: The objective of this report is to provide benchmarking information that will help companies address the needs of internal stakeholders in cost-effectively conducting and implementing an ORSA process. In order to obtain this benchmarking information, a cross-disciplinary survey was conducted to find out what insurance companies understand and expect from an ORSA, the effort required to complete an ORSA, and the benefits from doing so. This survey was undertaken on a global basis, with participants that included life, property and casualty (P&C), often referred to as "non-life" or "general" insurers in territories such as Europe, and health insurance companies in North America (the United States and Canada), Europe, and Asia.

Description: Essential Health Benefits and Actuarial Value

Description: In physics and engineering education, Fermi problems require solutions based on good approximate calculations with little or no actual data, involving making justified guesses and deducing bounds without using sophisticated tools. The idea of Fermi problems are of particular relevance to today's actuaries, as pricing, reserving, and financial reporting involve more and more complex stochastic components. The paper discusses some approximate solutions developed in academia in the spirit of Fermi problems.

Description: The authors of this report have identified three key corporate finance metrics and measures impacted by corporate pension plans that are increasingly being used by corporate decision-makers. The first is corporate leverage. The second is accounting adjustments made by rating agencies to income statements and cash flow statements. The third is the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) where it is felt that the calculation of the WACC from market data may be biased if corporate pension plans are ignored.

Description: Provides an overview of special characteristics of private equity and infrastructure asset classes, based on the perspective of experienced investors

Description: Recaps April 2015 seminar on derivatives use for fund managers and insurers in China. Describes growth in Chinese derivatives market including CSI 300 futures

Description: September 2015 Reinsurance News

Description: Risk Management, the newsletter of the Joint Risk Management Section. August 2015, entire issue