Description: Feature article that spotlights the SOA’s Actuarial Marketplace Solutions and Research departments.

Description: The article gives background on the Brazilian insurance market and summarizes the newly released regulations which deal with revised reserving guidelines and new capital requirements. Additional capital requirements are promulgated for credit, market, legal, underwriting and operational risks.

Description: This is an interview with Shane Chalke, FSA, MAAA, who has started three businesses since 1983. Chalke, the youngest person ever to be elected to the SOA Board of Governors, has a knack for making the right business decisions. He tells how his actuarial background has played a role in his success, and what makes him a winner.

Description: This article is about the Society of Actuaries' Education and Examination Research Paper Committee awarding 30 Fellowship credits to Krzysztof M. Ostaszewski, Ph.D., ASA, for his paper, 'Macroeconomic Aspects of Private Retirement Programs.' This is the twelfth such paper approved for Fellowship credit under the SOA’s Future Education Methods program. The paper analyzes possible macroeconomic factors contributing to the decline in the use of defined benefit plans and proposes an alternative hypothesis for the cause of the decline.

Description: This article discusses the different types of attitudes toward risk based on the prevailing economic climate.

Description: This article discusses the shortfalls present in most retirement planning software. Some of these come from the design of the software and some from unsophisticated use of it. In any case, the resources needed for retirement are often understated.

Description: Article discussing the SOA’s addition of a new membership section, Social Insurance & Public Finance Section and a new section of the Web site, Pathway to Membership.

Description: The viability and future outlook for the individual disability industry has dramatically improved from where it was 10 years ago. Evidence of this turn–around can be found in the industry's current profitability and its development of new markets. This article discusses where the market stands today.

Description: This article is about a seminar held on October 30, 1997 to discuss mortality improvement in the NAFTA countries and the impact of such improvements on the financing and benefit adequacy of the countries’ individual social security systems. The gathering of about 80 researchers from a variety of disciplines served as a type of summit meeting on the NAFTA countries’ mortality projections. The seminar was Phase 2 of a three-phase SOA research project, 'Impact of Mortality Improvement on Social Security: Canada, Mexico, and the United States.' The project is intended to provide some guidance for appropriate governmental bodies to use in determining future financing and benefit needs for social security. It is sponsored by the SOA, The Actuarial Foundation [formerly the SOA Foundation], the Retirement Research Foundation, the American Society of Pension Actuaries, the social security administration of each NAFTA country, and the Pension Research Council.

Description: This article is a review of the National Summit on Retirement Savings held on June 4-5, 1998 in Washington, D.C. The summit focused on the implications of low savings rates on the aging of America and was designed to help policy makers and all Americans think about ways to increase retirement savings.