Description: Insurers are struggling to keep pace with rapidly changing economic conditions, customer needs and regulation. We at Oliver Wyman believe there is an opportunity for many insurers to generate more customer value and fuel their growth by rethinking their approach to Product Development.

Description: This article is about the constant pressure on reducing life insurance premiums and makes a case for eliminating guaranteed cash values to assist in that effort.

Description: This article addresses the issues of short-term volatility, the non-equivalency of traders and, how product development is being impacted by market consistency.

Description: This panel discussion looks at new pricing techniques including the use of risk theory, pricing for the entire rate book, and the handling of overhead expenses. There is also a discussion of setting assumptions and the sources of data for assumptions.

Description: This paper describes a technique used to simulate stock market trends which are then applied to evaluate the adequacy of the investment risk premium for a certain type of equity-based endowment. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1969, Vol. 21, Pt. 1, No. 61.

Description: This article offers an overview of the preneed market, its products and pricing.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 Annual Meeting addresses pricing inadequacies that are perceived throughout the industry. Concerns are expressed about assumptions, lack of experience studies, surplus levels, and replacements.

Description: This article is part of the Digest of Informal Discussion, which took place at the 1957 Society of Actuaries Eastern Spring Meeting, held March 21-22 in New York City. The article identifies the participants and summarizes each person’s comments. The participants discuss varying premium rates by policy size and sex, including regulatory requirements and practical issues. Expense trends are also discussed, and their relationship to average policy size and premium structure graded by policy amount. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1957 Volume 9, Number 24.

Description: In setting future mortality assumptions for pricing, the actuary needs to consider not only recent results and recent annualized mortality improvements, but also must look at the possible impact of possible shocks epidemics, wars, etc.

Description: This article presents a fable about the issues that arise between marketers and actuaries in the product development process.