Description: There will be no easy resolution to the current trade friction between the U.S. and China. If anything, the motivations for increasing protectionism are set to intensify. What are these motivations? Where is this trade war headed? And what impact could this have on economies and financial markets?

Description: This panel from the May 1982 Society of Actuaries meeting in Colorado Springs discussed the diversification of life insurance companies. Topics included: 1. Recent experience in the acquisitions, diversification and corporate structure of life insurance companies. 2. Factors causing companies to change the forms of their operations. 3. Process for life insurance companies deciding on their paths. 4. Impact of a change in production, marketing, profitability, administration, and management of our industry and our profession. 5. Expected evolution of these developments in the 1980's and beyond.

Description: Regulatory change and increased focus on internal risk management are driving a renewed interest in model efficiency. In this session, we will review several new and existing tools, that show significant promise for advanced modeling of equity linked products. These include: • Clustering • Use of unique--and potentially a different number of--scenarios for each policy • Semi Monte Carlo (SMC) – this is a proprietary technique that is similar to a combination of Monte Carlo and numeric integration • Using a neural network approach to optimize some of the more complex and manual aspects of clustering and improve the fit of the clustered model • Combining SMC with the use of unique scenarios per policy

Description: Retirees will face the societal issue of inadequate savings with likely insufficient time to rectify the situation. They need immediate growth, but also the disciplines of risk management. They typically do not know how to engage with these two aspects in a harmonious manner on their own. Insurance companies are in the business of providing the solution but regulators have been clamping down in favor of simpler and more transparent products. In addition, the market reality over the last decade has been that insurers have stock betas at a multiple to the general markets with PE ratios well below. A panel of senior professionals from writers of retirement product business will present their vision of how the insurance industry can address the above dilemma, including the risks underlying the writing of the business, impact of financial markets, and regulations in the development of the business.

Description: This research report on the ability to influence annuity purchases found the following contrast: • Pre-retirees’ intentions to buy a life income annuity appear to be impacted by the interventions tested in this research. There were stronger effects when pre-retirees were provided with basic information, such as life expectancy, and anecdotal evidence. • Retirees’ annuity purchase intentions do not appear to be impacted by the interventions used in the study.

Description: ReFocus is an annual global conference for senior-level life insurance and reinsurance executives hosted jointly by ACLI and the Society of Actuaries (SOA). This event features top-notch speakers, thought-provoking sessions, and superior networking opportunities.

Description: A discussion of how the tax law changes of 2003 might affect the attractiveness of variable annuity business relative to mutual funds and direct investments in dividend paying equities.

Description: 1992 SOA Regional Meeting, Anaheim. This session provided an update of topics relating to individual annuity products. Subjects covered included: 1. The marketing and design of variable annuities, fixed interest rate annuities and market-value adjusted annuities. 2. Immediate annuities with participation and liquidity features.

Description: 1999 SOA Regional Meeting, Atlanta. The stated objective of this session was to provide a good feel of what financial service convergence means. It included a legislative update of what was happening in Washington in 1999 and discussions on customer segmentation, on bancassurance products, and distribution channels within a bank.

Description: From a session at the annual meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Chicago, Illinois, October 15-18, 2000 Discussion of how products and services are tailored for in-bank insurance sales. Particular emphasis is placed on the middle-income market. Particular issues include product design, underwriting, policy issue, sales support, and field and customer access to the home office for service.