Description: This article discusses the growing popularity of variable products and compares the product design and pricing of VUL and UL products.

Description: This article describes the functions of the National Center for Health Statistics which serves as the focal points for U.S. health statistics. The NCHS data collection program goes beyond the important vital statistics. The Center produces data on the extent of illness and disability in the population.

Description: This article gives a brief history of the insurance industry in Switzerland and then describes the actuarial profession there today and tomorrow.

Description: This article is the first in a four-part series about what actuaries see as ideal components of a health care reform package. This part covers health care reform ideas explored at the Conference of Consulting Actuaries’ CCA 2009 Annual Meeting in Tucson, Ariz.

Description: 0ne of Hartford’s more neglected assets is its jai-alai “fronton”, or arena. Jai-alai is a fast-paced Basque sport, on which betting is legalized in several slates. Its scoring system presents a fascinating actuarial puzzle, in pursuit of which many area students have invested significant time, effort and computer expense. This article summarizes the rules of the game, the scoring system and poses the question as to whether a team's chances of winning can be analytically determined. Note: This is the first of two articles. The second is in the February 1984 issue.

Description: Recently, the media has begun to focus on the “capital squeeze” facing the life insurance industry. The February 20 issue of National Underwriter reported on a study just completed by Standard & Poor’s: “The life insurance industry is caught in an unprecedented squeeze on capital...

Description: This is a review of the publication entitled 'Medicare: Health Insurance for the Aged, 1969: Geographic Indices of Reimbursement by State and County.' It is of value to health actuaries because it contains information as to the variation in health insurance claim costs by geographical areas within the United States.

Description: The author describes immunization with a simple illustration requiring only high school algebra rather than the ordinary and stochastic calculus that has been applied to this subject. It illustrates that if you have three invesmtents with different durations, we can take some combination of any two of them to get the same duration as the third.

Description: Book Review from The Actuary, September 1989 – Volume 23, No. 8. Actuarial Mathematics by N. Bowers. H. Gerber. J. Hickman, D. Jones and C. Nesbitt. Published by the Society of Actuaries, 1986.

Description: This article discusses valuation guidelines for participating whole life policies, that should be, in the authors opinion, consistent with guidelines for other types of policies.