Description: This article announces the availability of The Valuation Actuary Handbook. The purpose of this handbook is to provide assistance to all actuaries who need to use cash-flow testing to validate the appropriateness of reserves. It is a “how to” manual that contains the most up-to-date considerations and techniques for the valuation process.

Description: Setting the X Factor Percentile— Commentary by G. Thomas Mitchell from The Financial Reporter, October 1999, Issue No. 40.

Description: This article discusses the calculation of mean reserves in certain cases where terminal reserves are negative and proposes a minimum reserve formula which produces adequate mean reserves in all cases.

Description: This actuarial note provides a discussion of modified reserves and minimum cash values when continuous functions are used. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: Discussion of the paper 'The Effect of Varying Interest Rates' by Charles Connolly.

Description: This note suggests a simple approximate formula for the purpose of computing a terminal reserve when only mean reserves and net premiums are known. The author provides an expression for the error in this approximate formula and an exact formula for terminal reserves in terms of mean reserves, amounts of insurance, and a set of constants. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1951, Vol. 3, No. 6.

Description: This article Provides a description of an IRS Directive that provides a safe harbor tax reporting position for computing tax reserves for pre-2018 tax years for annuity contracts subject to AG43 and VM-21 and life insurance contracts subject to VM-20 Principal Based Reserves methods. The safe harbor is required to be implemented on the 2017 tax return, with certain spread amounts in some cases to future tax years starting in 2018.

Description: 1992 SOA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. This 1992 session on the Statutory Valuation Opinion covered the following topics: 1. Regulatory issues and the amendments to the standard valuation law. 2. Practical considerations, such as accumulating data, setting assumptions and creating models. 3. Issues and considerations involved in cash-flow testing.

Description: Discusses the use of a valuation basis involving the use of two interest rates, which solves the deficiency reserve problem without requiring the abandonment of either low gross premiums or relatively high withdrawal values.

Description: This article summarizes the key changes to VM-31 requirements in the 2020 version of the Valuation Manual for both life and variable annuities, and compares and contrasts the requirements for each. In addition, the article offers insights into common issues and recommendations for VM-31 reports from the viewpoints of a regulator, consultant, and company actuary.