Description: The author recommends the use of "minimally destructive scenarios" as part of an ORSA process, in order to deal with cognitive bias that can occur in risk decision-making. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: Research report describing the results of an Emerging Risks Survey conducted in 2013. The report includes comparisons to the five previous surveys as well as a survey sent to INARM members in April 2008.

Description: List of recent publications that may be of interest to readers of Risk Management newsletter.

Description: Part 2 of a 2 part series. Tells about 5 concepts that can be thought to frame ERM. This article is about Alignment, Adaptability and Resilience.

Description: This article describes the allocation of FATCA withholding risk in cross-border reinsurance arrangements and discusses practical considerations in regards to the drafting of those agreements.

Description: Research report describing the results of an Emerging Risks Survey conducted in 2015. The report includes comparisons to the previous surveys.

Description: Insurance companies use derivatives to manage and mitigate risks that are inherent in their investment or liability portfolios, including traditional asset/liability matching, dynamic hedging and static hedging. The authors explore how Solvency II will influence life insurers’ hedging strategies.

Description: 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Chicago. This paper starts by defining and discussing the nature of risk and its primary relationship to capital preservation. The paper then continues with a guide for implementing a company’s risk appetite statement for a variable annuity product.

Description: Many top-performing businesses aren’t just risk aware, but rather risk intelligent. Such a posture helps prepare companies for a major event and can demonstrate to a regulator or auditor that an appropriately strong control framework is in place. Better still, companies gain real strategic value from a “risk adjusted” understanding not only of their threats and vulnerabilities, but also the upside opportunities associated with various risks. It starts with having both qualitative and quantitative information to identify, assess and manage risks. Strategic risk management, at its core, is about creating value by increasing transparency and accountability, and quality of information. More than a mere compliance exercise, effective risk management enables more informed strategic decision making, increased accountability and transparency, a greater likelihood of organizational success, and – ultimately – competitive advantage, as borne out by many studies that correlate risk management and financial results.

Description: In the June 2014 issue of Product Matters, Doug Robbins of Pacific Life authored a fascinating article entitled “Velocity of Diversification.” Therein, he proposed a pricing measure that describes the “…speed at which confidence in profitability is attained”. How can stochastic modeling of mortality be applied to analyze the velocity of diversification, and how would that measure be affected by volatility in the underlying assumptions?