Description: Panel session exploring a variety of issues connected to long-term disability reserve buyouts, including: · Advantages and risks for buyers and sellers · Use of appropriate reserving assumptions · Possible financial structures for a buyout

Description: Three papers use sophisticated actuarial methods to develop a straightforward retirement income strategy that can be implemented in virtually any IRA or 401(k).

Description: Many life insurance companies that issue participating policies follow business practices that they argue allow them a deduction for tax purposes for policyholder dividends in the year prior to actual payment. This article discusses several recent developments related to policyholder dividend accruals, including Revenue Ruling 2011-29 and the New York Life and MassMutual cases, and highlights the four arguments commonly made by the IRS in challenging companies' claimed tax treatment of such dividends.

Description: The different broad purposes served by the material change concept under federal tax law are outlined. More specific material change and similar issues that are pertinent to particular Code provisions and guidance from the IRS that has addressed those issues are also addressed. In the final part of this article, authors comment on whether any overarching principles can be gleaned that can assist insurers and policy owners in making decisions about whether particular changes can safely be made, and thoughts are offered with respect to future potential IRS guidance that would be helpful as taxpayers navigate these often uncertain waters.

Description: Read the French language version of the December 2016 issue of Risk Management published by the Joint Risk Management Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Hear from the editor’s on the December 2018 issue of Risk Management published by the JRMS.

Description: The ORSA (Own Risk and Solvency Assessment) for ERM frameworks and processes is continuing to be implemented by organizations.

Description: Is Risk/Return a sound tool for decision-making? No. It is not consistent, not objective, distorts decision and degrades governance. Why? What shall we do then?

Description: The costly, time-consuming and complicated process of enterprise risk management (ERM) can be improved in many companies and made less tedious for managers by using reasonable data and templates obtained from peer group entities. The models used to calculate economic capital (EC) often underestimate its value because they do not consider decision-maker perception about risk. We assume here that managers, as the decision-makers, have appropriate business understanding and they can provide substantial information about risk characteristics regarding all business processes. Therefore we are focused, in this paper, on collecting data from managers across the different businesses to derive the appropriate knowledge about risky events, the importance of particular types of risk, the relationship between the risk outcomes and the level of risk control in a particular industry. We conclude that the collected data has a high potential for use as a benc hmarking reference and analysis for improving ERM models for individual businesses.

Description: Panelists discuss employers' perspective of defining strategies to identify best-in-market opportunities. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 1.