Description: Feature article discussing numerical short cuts, rules of thumb, estimators, modeling tips, etc. The featured problem is fitting the intermediate points for a real-world stochastic model of interest rates.

Description: Read the November 2019 issue of The Modeling Platform, published by the Modeling Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: 2011 SOA Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This paper suggests the use of a policy event-based loss estimation method using expert input and simulation for forecasting long duration expenditures: that is to say, there is an efficient time, which is random and observable to replace a physical asset.

Description: Reviews book entitled Stochastic Theory of a Risk Business by Hilary Seal. Book presents a comprehensive survey of the literature on the mathematical foundations of risk taking as a business.

Description: Principle-based reserving requires modeling assets and liabilities across a range of scenarios to assess the sufficiency of assets when determining reserves, a major shift from the current formulaic framework. These changes will require valuation actuaries to evolve their skill set by heightening their focus on creative analysis, gaining deeper understanding of complex projections and clearly communicating drivers of reserve movements to stakeholders in order to influence strategic decision-making. The panelists will discuss the way that they see the role of the valuation actuary changing in response to the change in focus in reserving requirements. They will also discuss successful characteristics along with best practices for understanding and explaining results in the new paradigm. The audience will be given the opportunity to interact through polling and facilitated discussion of their stories, experiences and observations.

Description: This paper focuses on two aspects of SFAS 87. The first is the availability of the discount rate, and its consequences. The second is the corridor approach to gains and losses amortization. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 2.

Description: A European call option pricing model similar to the Black-Scholes equation [1] is derived. Like the Black-Scholes equation, the model is based upon an assumption of a lognormal distribution of the price of a risky, non-dividend-paying security at a given point in the future. However, unlike Black-Scholes, the market's risk preference is recognized through a parameter that permits refinement of the model to agree either with experience or with future advances in the underlying theory.

Description: This session covers stochastic modeling processes currently in use and explores others that may be beneficial to health actuaries. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2, Session 76

Description: This article is the first installment of a three-part series that aims to provide an overview of ESGs and will focus on the general motivation for stochastic modeling, its advantages and its limitations. Future articles will further break down the key factors of ESGs and the application of these factors to better understand the Academy Interest Rate Generator (AIRG).

Description: This article is a book review of “Two Stochastic Processes,” by John A. Beekman. The author of this article notes that the two stochastic processes referred to in the book are the Gaussian Markov and the collective risk stochastic processes, and that both the theory and applications are examined. Note: a more detailed review of this book will appear in the Transactions.