Description: Read the January 2020 issue of International News published by the International Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Article provides a brief summary of the highlights from a survey completed in fall 2018 covering Emerging Risks. This is the 12th iteration of the survey and provides trends and qualitative comments from respondents on a variety of ER and ERM topics. Climate change and cyber risks continue to lead the responses.

Description: Article provides a brief summary of the highlights from a survey completed in fall 2018 covering Emerging Risks. This is the 12th iteration of the survey and provides trends and qualitative comments from respondents on a variety of ER and ERM topics. Climate change and cyber risks continue to lead the responses.

Description: Mandatory implementation of life principle-based reserves (PBR) is just around the corner and there is no shortage of work to do, as most products have yet to be moved to PBR. Oliver Wyman recently completed its 2019 PBR survey, with more than 40 participants covering 85 percent of the individual life market, including 23 of the top 25 life writers and five reinsurers. This article will expand on the key survey findings, including implementation trends, analysis to date, model robustness and common simplifications.

Description: This article, Spreadsheet Controls Add Risk Resilience, spotlights why spreadsheets have stood the test of time and how they help contribute to an actuary’s success. It also discusses common causes of data integrity issues relative to spreadsheets. And, offers insight into controls that can be utilized to helps actuaries solve these issues and ensure the accuracy and consistency of the data on which they base their analysis.

Description: This article Provides a description of an IRS Directive that provides a safe harbor tax reporting position for computing tax reserves for pre-2018 tax years for annuity contracts subject to AG43 and VM-21 and life insurance contracts subject to VM-20 Principal Based Reserves methods. The safe harbor is required to be implemented on the 2017 tax return, with certain spread amounts in some cases to future tax years starting in 2018.

Description: This paper examines the Australian actuarial qualification process from the perspective of what makes a good education system, and notes that there are a number of constraints imposed by the profession that impair the quality of students’ learning outcomes. The paper goes on to suggest how these pitfalls might be avoided in the interests of providing future actuaries with an opportunity to develop the attributes they will need for their professional careers. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2006.

Description: The speech was mainly introduced the current government long-term care insurance in China, analyzed the potential opportunities and challenges of commercial homecare insurance driven by the aging of the society and the pressure of social insurance. Briefly introduced some innovated explorations conducted by our company Fulfill Homecare in these couple of years, with some insurance companies, to bring some thoughts to the innovative insurance product design of commercial care insurance.

Description: Reinsurance has been available for VA Guarantees for over 20 years. During that time, the reinsurance market for VA Guarantees has undergone frequent and sometimes violent transformations. Where does the market stand today? What forms and structures of reinsurance are available? Which VA Guarantee designs and features are easier to reinsure? Is reinsurance offered on both newly issued policies as well as in force/legacy books, and which vintages are difficult to reinsure? In an age of sophisticated hedging programs, what role does a reinsurer play in helping a VA writer manage this highly volatile risk? In this session, we will hear from a reinsurer that is actively writing new VA Guarantee reinsurance treaties in the U.S. and around the world, and from a VA writer that has successfully partnered with a reinsurer to enhance its VA product offering

Description: This meeting session, which occurred at the April 1982 Society of Actuaries meeting in Orlando, presented a discussion of U.S. Social Security issues. Questions discussed included: 1. What is the financial status of the Social Security program? 2. What changes have been recently adopted and what changes have been proposed? 3. How would these changes affect the private pension system costs and plan design? 4. What is the proper role of the actuarial profession regarding the Social Security program? Included discussion of the paper, Constant Replacement Ratios in Retirement: A Theoretical Approach,' by Barnet N. Berin and Anthony B. Richter.