Description: The author points out ways to to identify potential weaknesses in an actuarial process and provides ideas to improve the process.

Description: On October 30, 2015, the SOA Assumption Development and Governance Group, an informal discussion group consisting of nearly 200 interested actuaries with topics pertaining to actuarial assumption development and governance, organized an industry discussion call on end-to-end assumption documentation practices. The purpose of this call was to generate a large list of ideas for best-practice assumption documentation. More than thirty companies were represented in the call, including direct insurers, reinsurers and consulting firms. This article is the work product of the discussion written by Laurie Li and Alex Zaidlin.

Description: A discussion of funding arrangements that can reduce the costs of providing medical coverage through lower reserves or state tax savings, instead of through cutting benefits.

Description: Article from The Actuary, June 1983, volume no. 17, issue no. 6, that discusses the New South Life Case which happens to be one of the mercifully few life companies in which a major deficit has been directly linked to miscalculation of policy reserves.

Description: This article discusses a study of the impact of the drug infliximab on Crohn's disease patients. This study had been approved in response to an SOA request for proposals for research on the health cost and utilization effects of a specific prescription drug.

Description: Metadata for entire issue

Description: Updates on HPC activities, including new work groups for providing input to key players as health care reform moves on from the legislative phase into the regulatory phase, as well as ongoing activities of existing workgroups in financial reporting, long term care, stop loss, disease management, Medicare SUpplement, sovency, cancer claims experience, and risk adjustment.

Description: A dicussion of the Rate Classification Actuarial Standard of Practice, ASOP #12: its purpose, its scope, guidance, and examples.

Description: Describes four papers that provide excellent overviews of rather different topics that should be of considerable value to practicing actuaries interested in being informed about activity on the frontier of actuarial science and still important today.

Description: From 4 to 8 June 2018, the German Association of Actuaries, in conjunction with the IAA, will host the 31st International Congress of Actuaries in Berlin.