Description: Equity-indexed annuities [EIAs] can be viewed as mutual funds wrapped around with various guarantees. A recent paper derived a closed form formula for pricing this dynamic guarantee if early withdrawal from the fund [before maturity] is not permitted. This paper studies the pricing of dynamic protection without a maturity date, i.e., the investor chooses the date to cash in the fund accumulation.

Description: The authors offer a method for estimating parameters for well-known three-parameter models of force of mortality. The method involves fitting a series of linear regressions, and finding the least-squares estimates of all the parameters by using the Golden Section Search method. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 1.

Description: This paper discusses teaching demography at the college level, some associated problems, and it provides an extensive syllabus for demography. From ACTUARIAL RESEARCH CLEARING HOUSE, 1980 VOL. 2.

Description: This is the agenda for the 28th Annual Actuarial Research Conference held in Madison, WI August 19-21, 1993. From ACTUARIAL RESEARCH CLEARING HOUSE, 1994 VOL. 1.

Description: This paper consists of two parts. The first concerns the financing of public systems, the second is a challenging introduction to variances encountered in life insurance and life annuity theory. The first part emerges from work by some actuarial students and faculty at the University of Michigan during the past five years. The second part was stimulated by some developments in the preparation of the second edition of Actuarial Mathematics.

Description: This article describes a couple of things can be done to speed up universal life calculations in a BASIC program. It describes how the calculation of year end fund value can be done in one pass instead of 12.

Description: The differences between select and ultimate insurance mortality are usually explained in terms of: 1. deterioration of a person's physical condition which occurs due to aging, and 2. anti-selection which occurs as some policyholders allow their coverage to lapse [i.e., those policyholders who find their health has become poor keep their coverage, while those who remain healthy discontinue their insurance]. This paper explores the differences in mortality between companies related to the differences in lapse rates of the companies.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to explore the capital holdings of Canadian property/casualty insurers, taking regulatory requirements as given. In particular, it addresses the following issues: 1. Are firms in fact over capitalized with respect to mandated capital adequacy thresholds? 2. Do higher capital holdings translate into lower returns on equity [ROEs] for firms? 3. Is there a relationship between Best’s Ratings and a firm’s capital holdings, as shown to be in the United States? 4. Which firm characteristics are important in determining capital holdings?

Description: This paper explores the relationship between the Wealth Transfer Index, a statistic defined by Brown and Bilodeau 1997, and retirement age, which is the age at which the workers in an economy cease to be economically productive. There appears to be a strong positive correlation between the Wealth transfer Index and retirement age based on Canadian historical data.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the undergraduate research in actuarial science at Ball State University. Abstracts of 23 honors theses, with brief comments about the students' careers, are given. Common characteristics of the theses are described. Helpful techniques for advising thesis writing students are provided. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1996, Vol. 1.