Description: The goal of this paper is to dispel the prevailing belief that American-style options cannot be valued efficiently in a simulation model by presenting a general algorithm for such valuation, and thus remove what has been considered a major impediment to the use of simulation models for valuing financial instruments. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: Asset cash flow modeling and asset assumptions are growing in importance with PBR especially considering the low interest rate environment. The Academy’s Life Practice Council and Life Valuation Committee have formed a Low Interest Rate Asset Adequacy Testing Task Force which has conducted an industry survey to raise awareness and summarize the actuarial best practices for financial reporting actuaries practicing in today’s very low interest rate environment. As the scrutiny on the asset side ratchets up, actuaries must consider how best to develop the asset assumptions as well as model the reinvestment and disinvestment strategies. Coherent assumptions and modeling practices across modeling exercises are expected while respecting the purpose of each calculation.

Description: This paper develops the theory of the measurement of interest rate risks from its foundations, beginning with the question of which asset values market or book are economically relevant and therefore at risk. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1985, Vol. 37.

Description: This is a presentation on computing tight bounds for insurance payments with nonlinear risk. Semi-definite Programming is defined, some examples are presented, and non-linear applications are presented. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2012, Vol.1.

Description: This article discusses the attributes of a unified Operational Risk Management framework and how those attributes can underpin a seven-factor economic capital model.

Description: The method described in this paper is to allocate surplus to each category of business and reserves in proportion to its estimated effect on an insurer's surplus variation. Risk load for each category of business is then selected so that the return on allocated surplus for each category is equal to the overall return on surplus. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.

Description: This is an abstract of the paper entitled 'Axioms for the Valuation of Payment Streams: A Topological Vector Space Approach' by Approach by S. David Promislow. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 1994, Vol. 1

Description: This paper examines the pricing of catastrophe risk bonds. Catastrophe risk cannot be hedged by traditional securities. Therefore the pricing of catastrophe risk bonds requires an incomplete markets setting and this creates special difficulties in the pricing methodology. The paper briefly discusses the theory of equilibrium pricing and its relationship to the standard arbitrage-free valuation framework. Equilibrium pricing theory is used to develop a pricing method based on a model of the term structure of interest rates and a probability structure for the catastrophe risk. This pricing methodology can be used to assess the default spread on catastrophe risk bonds relative to traditional defaultable securities.

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: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Our lecturer presents findings from a research project relating to the Cox, Ingersoll & Ross model of interest rates, including an effective way of pricing general interest rate derivatives and pricing bonds.