Description: Actuaries are accustomed to considering how much conservatism is appropriate in their estimates, whether made for pricing or for mea- surement of liabilities. In the proposals for a new standard on accounting for insurance contracts, this conservatism is referred to by the International Accounting Standards Board IASB and the Financial Accounting Standard Board FASB of the United States as the risk adjustment.

Description: Discussion of how meaningful GAAP ROE is as a measurement of management performance or how well management has deployed capital over a reporting period.

Description: Considerations when developing internal models for use in Solvency II.

Description: This article discusses GAAP and IFRS changing standards, their differences and similarities. Issues included are fair value accounting for assets and financial liabilities, hedge accounting, financial instrument discosures and revenue recognition for contracts that do not qualify as insurance contracts.

Description: This article describes a simple but powerful tool for use by valuation actuaries and auditors when evaluating current assumptions for use in GAAP net premium reserve methods that require retrospective updating for actual experience and assumption changes. As a supplement, this tool can fill some holes left by existing tools. It produces results that can be compared to materiality thresholds at any level of aggregation, from a single reserve cohort up to the combination of all cohorts for all products subject to retrospective net premium reserve requirements. It can also serve as a benchmarking tool for estimated the possible effects of an assumption change or to help in explaining the effects of an actual assumption change.

Description: Understanding the Deferred Acquisition Cost (DAC) asset balance movements from one reporting period to the next can be a challenge when reportinged under FAS 97. The mechanics of FAS 97 call for an amortization ratio (i.e., k factor) that forces the amortization of the DAC asset to be matched to the earnings received over the life of the product. However, the fact that the k factor is dynamically set results in “unlocking” components of the DAC rollforward. This article shows how the basic equation for the amortization ratio can be used to derive equations that provide insights into what the DAC balance represents. Furthermore, partial derivatives of these equations are used to show how unexpected changes in the Estimated Gross Profit (EGP) stream impact the amortization and unlocking components of the DAC rollforward.

Description: Embedded Risk in Settlement Options on Older Life and Annuity Contracts

Description: The article discusses practical PGAAP issues under China GAAP, e.g. product classification, unbundling, acquisition expense allocation, VOBA grouping.

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: Stochastic DAC Unlocking for Variable Annuity Products by Alastair Longley-Cook, Dick Shaw, Mike Sherrill, and Jay Vadiveloo from The Financial Reporter, March 2001, Issue No. 45.