Description: Healthcare costs have been rising faster than general inflation for many years. Early models that predicted this past pattern projected healthcare expenditure growth that continued to outpace total expenditure growth leading to the fallacious position that the whole of the US economy would ultimately be consumed by healthcare. The Society of Actuaries' Pension Section and Health Section Research teams commissioned Professor Thomas E. Getzen of Temple University to construct a resource model for the projection of long term healthcare cost trends that includes capacity constraints to ensure the long-term projection is rational. The motivation for creation of the model was driven by its potential usage as a resource for the estimation of reportable liabilities for retiree healthcare benefits as specified under FAS 106 and GASB 45 accounting statements. This is a zip file containing the following: 1. A background paper on the creation of the health trend model, 2. The model, programmed in Microsoft Excel [xls format], that projects per-person expenditures and growth rates through 2099 using baseline assumptions, but also permits the flexibility for user–inputted alternative assumptions, and 3. Technical documentation providing transparency and support for the ultimate results.

Description: This section presents book reviews and summarizes recent publications: 'Measurement of Mortality' by Gershenson, 'Decision and Influence Processes in Private Pension Plans' by McNulty, Jr., 'Economic Assumptions Underlying the Medium-Range Projections of the Federal OASDI Trust Funds' by Lukaczer, 'Eighth Actuarial Valuation of the Assets and Liabilities under the Railroad Retirement Act as of 12/31/1959' by Railroad Retirement Board, 'Life Insurance' 9th edition by Maclean, 'Evaluation of a Single Visit Cardiovascular Examination' by US National Health Survey, 'Guide to Health Insurance Underwriting' by Tilton and Yochem, 'Duration of Limitation of Activity Due to Chronic Conditions, US, July 1959 - June 1969' by US National Health Survey.

Description: 1959 SOA Regional Meetings in Atlanta and San Francisco. These discussions on pensions examined the advantages of funding deferred profit sharing plans through a life insurance company and the problems involved in final average retirement plans.

Description: This paper was written at the suggestion of the Education and Examination Committee which expressed a need for review of recent developments in methods of dividend distribution. It may well be argued that there are no really new developments in the theory of distribution, but merely changes in practice represented by the introduction of various refinements in the dividend distribution process. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1959, Vol. 11, No. 31.

Description: This SOA report identifies methodologies currently in use by life insurers as well as potential new strategies to manage balance sheet and income volatility risk associated with fair value and related accounting

Description: Chapter 5 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes CORSIM, the Cornell Microsimulation Model, which is a large dynamic microsimulation model developed and maintained at Cornell University. CORSIM is a large-scale dynamic microsimulation model. It simulates the basic demographic and socioeconomic events that characterize the socioeconomic conditions of the population. Strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibilty and ease of use.

Description: This paper is a literature review of available papers, publications, articles, and presentations on the topic of longevity risk.

Description: This paper summarizes the salient techniques for evaluating and pricing the risks in group disability income coverages. This paper contains examples of how to evaluate short-term and long-term disability experience for developing manual rates. A discussion of the paper follows. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1990, Vol. 42.

Description: This paper examines the theory of surplus for a mutual life insurance organization. The paper tries to answer several important questions - What exactly is surplus, what is its purpose, of what magnitude might it be, from whence does it arise, and what are its implications with respect to equity between policyholders.

Description: This report describes and demonstrates a method to understand reputational risk that an insurance company can apply to the unique circumstances of the insurance firm. This method applies a policy-capturing survey with scenario analysis to generate insight into reputational risk from the perspective of a variety of stakeholders. Also included is instruction for spreadsheet-based query and reporting to facilitate the use of the information in the risk management function.