Description: This article discusses the Regulation XXX, the loss of significant sales in the term market and the following products designs which have been cited as possible abuses of the regulation: 1 Universal life products with shadow, 2 Non-guaranteed guarantees, 3 Guaranteed dividends, 4 Guaranteed refunds, 5 Re-entry, 6 P & C Insurance. The LHATF is considering new actuarial guidelines to address these issues.

Description: This article summarizes the activities of an industry group to develop alternatives to the impending XXX regulation. Five subcommittees will work on technical issues and a recommendation will be presented to the Life and Health Actuarial Task Force.

Description: This article discusses the effects of a reduction in the life valuation interest rate and the adoption of the 2001 CSO table. From Small Talk Newsletter, November 2005, Issue No. 25.

Description: In physics and engineering education, Fermi problems require solutions based on good approximate calculations with little or no actual data, involving making justified guesses and deducing bounds without using sophisticated tools. The idea of Fermi problems are of particular relevance to today's actuaries, as pricing, reserving, and financial reporting involve more and more complex stochastic components. The paper discusses some approximate solutions developed in academia in the spirit of Fermi problems.

Description: Section 807d of the IRC provides that the deductible reserve for a life insurance contract is the greater of net surrender value or the Federally Prescribed Reserve FPR calculated under prescribed interest rate and mortality assumptions, but in no event can the tax reserve exceed “aggregate statutory reserves” i.e., the statutory cap. This article logically concludes that deficiency reserves are included in the calculation of the statutory cap.

Description: Author traces the tax treatment of deficiency reserves, beginning with the 1959 Act, illustrating how the decisions made in the development of the 1959 Act continue to affect the tax treatment of those reserves today.

Description: An interview with Sheryl Flum, chief, Branch 4, IRS Office of Associate Chief Counsel (Financial Institutions and Products) at the Internal Revenue Service, regarding her role at the IRS and current tax issues facing the life insurance industry.

Description: Designing and Pricing LTCI Combination Products by Carl L. Friedrich from Long-Term Care Newsletter, December 2004, Issue No. 13.

Description: This article describes the mortality tables that the Board of Governors of the Society of Actuaries is recommending to the NAIC as successors to the 1958 CSO Table

Description: Update on Principles-Based Reserving