Description: Informal discussion of the role of life insurance in the national savings. Topics included: A. Life insurance company market share of the savings dollar. B. Impact of mutual fund investments on life insurance company sales. Types of marketing procedures used in the sale of life insurance in combination with mutual fund investments. C. Strategic desirability of variable life insurance policies as a means of recognizing the demand for equity investments. Statutory changes required before such policies can be marketed.

Description: Bringing managed care concepts into LTC claims management could benefit insurers, policyholders, and providers. This article outlines the case for doing so, and articulates the benefits to each stakeholder in the LTC claims process.

Description: Long-term care policy buyouts have been discussed within the industry lately as an additional policyholder option alongside a premium rate increase. This article discusses potential advantages and disadvantages of long-term care policy buyouts from the perspective of insurance carriers, regulators, and policyholders. It also explores certain key actuarial considerations relating to long-term care policy buyouts including potential approaches to valuing a buyout, adverse selection, and reinsurance.

Description: Recent research from Financial Finesse introduces a viable way to forecast the potential return on investment (ROI) of workplace financial wellness programs.

Description: description of theme of the 2017 Canadian Reinsurance Conference

Description: Summary of discussions from various panelists on the topic of Social Security. They looked at recent developments with respect to general legislation expanding coverage, discussion of the Constitutional issues with respect to Social Security, developing experience of the new Canadian old-age pension plan, inadequacy of the funding levels relative to promised benefits for both the Canadian old-age plan and US Social Security.

Description: The collective investment in transforming the life insurance proposition exceeds anything seen in the last thirty years — a working lifetime. As one would expect, reinsurers are playing a major role. The past five years have seen global reinsurers raise the bar on client experience to new levels, while also investing, expanding and re-organizing to support the transformation of the primary insurance industry, and in so doing also their own.

Description: This article covers domestic and international developments in the carbon market, offers some reflections on potential opportunities for actuaries in the carbon markets and provides insights into the skills needed to develop a successful carbon market practice.

Description: Traditional predictive tools are not built to deal with the variability the world currently faces. The COVID-19 pandemic amounts to a prolonged black swan event, for which one must look past conventional assessments to arrive at any level of confident predictions. Behavioral analysis factors for biases and heuristics designed specifically for uncertain evolutionary contexts, and which are the primary drivers of market participants’ decisions at present. Through understanding the most likely behaviors of individuals, it becomes possible to arrive at an aggregate understanding of market outcomes.

Description: Can Direct-to-Provider Contracting Achieve Value-Based Care for Employer-Sponsored Plans? Direct-to-provider contracting is a strategy in which a self-insured entity negotiates a contract directly with a provider of healthcare services rather than through a third-party administrator (TPA), often with the goal of driving value-based care. This article discusses the considerations for employers and providers with direct-to-provider contracting.