Description: Describes ways to avoid the next financial crisis by following the example of those who got it right and discerning what you could be doing to prevent your firm from experiencing excessive losses in future crises.

Description: "Management must manage. An incentive compensation formula will not be sufficient."

Description: Collection of essays received in response to the “Systemic Risk, Financial Reform and Moving Forward from the Financial Crisis” call for essays.

Description: The ORSA should be more than a compliance requirement -- its process should be an integral element of a company's governance and risk and strategic planning process used by both management and the board on a regular feedback loop basis. Similar to that used for ERM, it along with a carefully constructed set of metrics should serve as the springboard to be used to identify, control and mitigate short- and long-term risks, as well as to enable exploitation of opportunities to add shareholder and policyholder value. Risk can represent an opportunity from which insurers can leverage their knowledge and risk management capabilities to find and maintain a competitive edge. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: Various ingredients contributed to the current financial crisis, and we can learn many lessons from the crisis. Yet rather than myopically focus on the particular minutiae of the current circumstances, we ought to pay special attention to those central issues that underpin the current crisis, past crises and future crises. Focus is on risk adjusting reported profits.

Description: Interest rates rose from 2004 through 2007, so adjustable mortgage rates increased and many borrowers fell behind. After home prices topped out in 2006, speculators and some buyers who had overstretched found it impossible to refinance. This caused mortgage insurance claims. Insurers may want to study others’ missteps.

Description: This essay examines the root causes of the 2008 global financial crisis precipitated by the bursting of the housing bubble. The author suggests that if fraud is not addressed, future crises, perhaps even worse, will occur.

Description: The roots of the crisis are understood on a simplified basis, by 3 Ls: a Lack of accountability b Leverage and c Liquidity. Historically, people requiring mortgages sought their mortgages from local institutions that would conduct the evaluation and hold the risk. Loan officers of these institutions were accountable for the outcomes of their decisions – defaults were a direct reflection on their judgment. Leverage was a second key factor. Institutions guaranteed mortgages against default. The third L, liquidity, because a problem. When property values eventually evidenced their inevitable fall, defaults occurred at historically high rates.

Description: Potential actions are recommended for key stakeholders to manage the unintended consequences of systemic risk “brewing” within the retirement system today.