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 1997 Valuation Actuary Symposium, Session 15 focuses on life modeling.

Description: 2002 Valuation Actuary Symposium, Lake Buena Vista, FL. In this teaching session the instructor explained how to scrutinize model results and use models to make strategic decisions. Specific topics included validation of asset models, modeling considerations for derivatives and assets with embedded options, using models to assist with portfolio management, and using models to improve portfolio yields and realized product spreads.

Description: This session 5TS of the 2004 Valuation Actuary Symposium covers the need to model assets in insurance companies has gone well beyond compliance with cash-flow testing requirements. Robust asset modeling techniques are needed in order to quantify risk exposures appropriately and to comply with a widening array of liability valuation and capital adequacy calculations that rely on stochastically modeling the interaction of liabilities and the assets that support them.

Description: This session from the 1984 SOA Toronto Meeting discusses a nontechnical introduction to Applied Statistics and Operations Research, practical applications and examples for financial reporting and asset management and an overview of the potential use in actuarial applications of these management tools. From Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 10, No. 4B

Description: From session 76 CS at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999. Presenters demonstrate the potential risks of relying blindly on our models without sensitivity testing.

Description: This paper uses operations research to develop the answer to a question concerning the optimal size of a debit, which is a defined geographical area for an agent to sell and service business as part of a 'combination company' operation. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1968, Vol. 20, Pt. 1, No. 57.

Description: Presented at September 1995 Valuation Actuary Symposium. This sessions talks about financial projections as a management tool and tough issues which may have to be addresses in making such projections.

Description: 1994 SOA Spring Meeting, Orlando. In this session the panelists debated the diversity of professional practice about how companies and regulators can and should measure profit and set standards for profit margins. One panelist spoke of the traditional actuarial perspective, while the other represented the modern theory of finance.

Description: 1994 SOA Spring Meeting, Orlando. This session is a discussion and examination of cash-flow testing models, including those developed by the British Working Party, Finnish Working Party, and others.