Description: The recent financial crisis created incentives to review investment practices and see what was done well and what could be improved for the future. Looking inward at insurer investment practices, background trend information was generated and a survey developed for insurers to share their thoughts. The research continued with conversations in private and public forums, where initial conclusions were expanded.

Description: This session will present results of the most recent SOA/LIMRA studies of variable and fixed-indexed annuity policyholder behavior including withdrawal behavior, guaranteed living benefit elections and surrender activity. Conducted annually since 2006, a discussion on the results of these studies show how they have changed over time, as well as areas where the analysis will need to change or expand. After that, the presenters will focus on dynamic lapse for hot money businesses, which is an important topic for fixed deferred annuity. Key takeaways from this area will include an understanding how to differentiate between hot money and warm money, the different formulas used in the industry, and how to adjust an asset portfolio to protect against the risks associated with hot money businesses.

Description: This paper describes a theory of long-term interest-rate trends that was propounded in 1899 by an actuary, Charlton T. Lewis. The paper then presents a preliminary examination of how well that theory stands up in the light of 20th-century experience. The purpose is to invite more thorough evaluation by any experts who find the theory possibly useful.

Description: Review of changes made to life insurance taxation in Australia.

Description: Speaker, a noted economist and former Presidential-administration consultant, discusses the impact of politics on economics, and economic performance over the last eight years, touching on the effect of recent market volatility on pension-plan assets [during the Q&A]. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 1.

Description: Appendix E is round 2 on comments on application of judgmental methods from the Delphi study. See the SOA Website Research section for the full Delphi Study of Economic Variables Report along with all the variables.

Description: This is an Excel workbook, provided by the Society of Actuaries Pension Section, containing consumer price index data obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. Separate tabs include figures for the CPI-U, the Medical Care Consumer Price Index, etc.

Description: This crisis first started with subprime loans and quickly morphed into a credit crisis that eventually engulfed a lot of financial institutions around the world. If a AAA were really a AAA, this crisis would probably have been contained and localized. As the crisis developed, evidence emerged from the shadows that revealed the questionable quality of some AAA-rated MBS or ABS. Subprime loans were the weakest link. As the credit boom came to an end and the economy slowed down further, the Alt-A, prime and credit card loans were also affected. The subprime crisis is only the symptom of a much larger underlying problem. Both consumers and corporations were overleveraged.

Description: Arguably, many of the fundamental contributing factors to the 2008 mortgage crisis involved misdirected incentives and misinformation available to key participants in the housing finance process. The incentives discussed here include those of the mortgage holders, mortgage intermediaries, mortgage providers, securitizers, raters and CEOs and other highly paid staff of those involved. Unless similar incentives are recognized, future public policy decisions will again fail to avoid this system-wide risk. Since I am most familiar with the U.S. situation, my comments will be limited accordingly.

Description: The Society of Actuaries (SOA) published its first COVID-19 research brief on March 10, 2020, followed by regular updates and expansions through June 12, 2020. The comprehensive report includes a section of Key Statistics. On July 24, 2020, the SOA released a report showing updates through July 22 to selected graphs from or related to the Key Statistics section of the comprehensive report. This report provides similar updates through August 9, 2020.