Description: This paper aims to help financial and insurance practitioners better recognize, assess, and respond to large scale, large impact, rare events (LSLIRE’s) which are occurrences currently often wrongly labeled as being unpredictable black swans. A black swan, as Nassim Taleb defines it in his popular book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House & Penguin (2007-2010 2nd. Ed.) is 1) an outlier event, which 2) carries extreme impact, and 3) “makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact.” Elsewhere, Taleb says it is unpredictable, which is why people concoct explanations. Other people use the term in many and various ways, to enfold events missed by most people because they are rare, missed by computer models and/or experts, and to include events they simply seem personally to have misunderstood. The paper also discusses building better ways to assess such events’ background characteristics, emergence dynamics, logics, and other foreseeable attributes. A secondary focus is educating practitioners to better respond - whether to limit damage or to take advantage of - the opportunities that arise from what others are likely to miss or misjudge during and after the emergence of LSLIRE (AKA black swan) events.

Description: This is the fourth in a series of articles about accounting for reinsurance under GAAP Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts (LDTI). It looks at some concerns that arise from the relationship between ceded reinsurance and the underlying contracts. Recognizing a lack of formal guidance addressing these concerns, the article aims mostly to achieve performance and simplicity objectives

Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 The panelists discuss the benefits of hedging variable annuity guarantees, the challenges they face and how they keep score.

Description: This presentation is a Teaching Session, number 39TS, from the 2002 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held September 19-20 in Lake Buena Vista, FL. The instructors discuss identification and measurement of intangible assets including value of in-force policies, or value of business acquired [VOBA], and goodwill impairment testing. Historical perspective is provided, including the original purchase GAAP [PGAAP] guidance, the diversity in practice among companies, and controversy and disagreements between auditors and actuaries. This continues with the efforts of the Emerging Issues Task Force [EITF] 92-9, the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] and its views on pooling, the Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB] business combinations project, and the recent issuance by the FASB of FAS 141 and 142. The presentation includes experience from a real world application. Discussion from participants is included.

Description: This dialogue discusses the history and purpose of section 811(a) and its historic role in the computation of life insurance company taxable income and, in particular, reserves.

Description: This article discusses the discount rate that should be used under GASB 45. Public employers now find themselves in a similar situation to private sector employers in the early 1990's in that GASB 45 requires them to measure liabilities including post-retirement medical liabilities using accrual accounting.

Description: Practical Considerations for Implementing the New Statement of Position for Long Duration Contracts and for Separate Accounts –

Description: Since the issuance of IFRS 17 in 2017, the global insurance accounting standard, insurers across the globe have been making huge investment in assessing the impact and implementing the new standard. In late 2018, FASB issued ASU 2018-12 that revises key elements of the U.S. GAAP measurement models and disclosure requirements for long-duration contracts issued by insurers (also called FASB Targeted Improvements). Both standards are becoming effective 1/1/2021 (though IFRS 17 may potentially be deferred by a year). U.S. insurers that have international parents or subsidiaries, and report under a multi-GAAP environment will likely have to adopt both standards. By now most insurers should have nearly completed impact assessment for IFRS 17, designed road map for or have started the implementation journey. With the new U.S. GAAP requirements becoming effective concurrently, it is important to embark on the implementation journey with both standards in mind, and maximize the synergy to achieve cost-saving and design efficiency. This session will briefly introduce the two standards with a conceptual comparison, along with a discussion on where efficiency and synergy can be achieved in a concurrent implementation.

Description: Practical Considerations for Implementing the New Statement of Position for Long Duration Contracts and Separate Accounts .

Description: From an interactive forum session at the 2001 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, November 29-30, 2001 Discussion of the major financial reporting issues and concerns of senior actuaries in life insurance companies. Discussion focused cash flow testing methods and interpretation of results.