Description: discussion of a new product idea for retirement planning which integrates a variety of needs estate death benefit, annuity income, disability income, etc. into one product

Description: Feature article discussing recent innovations within the fixed annuity insurance industry and the changes those innovations may bring.

Description: This article addresses the issues of short-term volatility, the non-equivalency of traders and, how product development is being impacted by market consistency.

Description: Life reinsurance activity in Bermuda has experienced rapid growth in recent years. This article explores the key drivers of this growth.

Description: The article summarizes three papers presented at the 2014 Living to 100 Symposium V, which was hosted by the SOA in Orlando in January 2014. The papers take three different views of retirement saving: the individual's, the insurance provider's and a wholesale risk management view. David Blanchett of Morningstar proposes a new model to assess the true cost of retirement, Moshe Milevsky proposes a new product concept based on the nearly forgotten tontine and Johnny Li proposes a new set of mortality indices based on the Cairns-Blake-Dowd projection model for the purpose of actively managing mortality and longevity risk.

Description: The article summarizes PLRs 201515001 and 201519001, in which the IRS addressed the treatment of a non-qualified deferred annuity contract under the investor control doctrine and other applicable rules. The contract provides a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit and investment options that correspond to “public” mutual funds. The IRS concluded that the investor control doctrine will apply to treat the contract purchaser as the owner of the mutual fund shares for federal income tax purposes. The IRS also addressed certain other tax aspects of the arrangement. The effect of the rulings is that the contract will be taxed similarly to a contingent deferred annuity (where the policyholder holds the mutual fund shares in his or her own brokerage account), while being structured like a traditional deferred variable annuity (where the insurance company holds the shares in its separate account).

Description: A 2015 Society of Actuaries Report (co-sponsored by the Reinsurance Section, Product Development Section, and Committee on Life Insurance Research) entitled “Life and Annuity Living Benefit Riders: Considerations for Insurers and Reinsurers,” is available on the Society of Actuaries website (www.soa.org). It covers a wide range of living benefit riders with medically-related triggers on life or annuity products. This article is largely derived from that report, covering several of those riders. In order to add to the marketing implications of these plans, Claude Thau, in his capacity as President of Thau, Inc. has provided additional commentary from the perspective of a marketer who is active in this field.

Description: Metadata for entire issue

Description: Panelists discuss the challenges of managing the financial risks of guaranteed minimum death benefits [GMDBs] and guaranteed living benefits [GLBs] on variable annuity contracts. In particular, they discuss managing these risks through product design and through hedging. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 31PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.