Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits, indexed variable annuities, etc. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approach to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications with regard to the difficulty of risk management.

Description: This article reviews the topics discussed at the December 2004 meeting of the Life and Health Actuarial task force. The covered topics include Actuarial Guideline 38 and Reserves for Variable Annuities C-3 Phase 2 reserves.

Description: Segregated Funds Seminar Illuminates Equity Guarantees Risks by G. Thomas Mitchell from The Financial Reporter, February 2000, Issue No. 41.

Description: A paper demonstrating how to obviate the need for market timing strategies in variable annuity products by judicious use of product design. The paper presents the premise behind the product design, provides numerical examples, then explores possible extensions of the concept to produce more sophisticated variable annuity plans based on guarantees of investment outcomes.

Description: This article discusses a new procedure for correcting inadvertent failures to satisfy the diversification requirements applicable to variable annuity and life insurance contracts under section 817h of the Internal Revenue Code.

Description: Important tools used in property & casualty P&C insurance—predictive modeling and data mining—can be applied to more effectively model policyholder behavior risks in variable annuity VA contracts. In this article, a case study is used to demonstrate how a predictive modeling approach can improve upon traditional methods used to model VA lapse behavior.

Description: Description of the increased gamma of the liabilities of a portfolio of variable annuities. Discussion of the sensitivity of gamma due to changes in policyholder behavior.

Description: Milliman, Inc. recently conducted a survey of leading variable annuity insurers to better quantify the current dynamics of the GLB market. The scope of the Milliman survey included variable annuities that offered any type of GLB during calendar year 2004 and during the first quarter of 2005.

Description: This article discusses a variety of new developments in the annuity market.

Description: This article provides the reader with some insights regarding tax planning under the new required methodology.