Description: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a practical method for interpolation and smoothing and give a number of numerical examples using the method. The method is a variation of the Whittaker-Henderson method. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: This paper presents a few formulaic examples displaying the advantages of geometric methods over arithmetic methods and provides some theorems proving the increased accuracy geometric methods can provide for interpolation or extrapolation

Description: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of a new approximation to determine contingency reserves against adverse mortality experience for a portfolio of life annuity contracts.

Description: Recognizing an opportunity to help serve its members in this age of increased financial oversight, the Health Section of the Society of Actuaries commissioned a series of guides on the use of statistical techniques specifically geared for the work of health actuaries. In this first guide in the series, the topic is an estimate well-known to health actuaries- the calculation of incurred but not reported [IBNR] health claims reserves. In particular, this guide focuses on the development of confidence intervals around IBNR estimates.

Description: Discusses the Canadian Institute of Actuaries' disability morbidity study to update the 1964 CDT and explains the techniques used to interpolate incidence rates from the 1964 CDT.

Description: This paper discusses a class of asymmetric distributions arising in a random summation scheme. Members of the class are called asymmetric Laplace distributions as the standard Laplace distributions, which are symmetric, constitute a proper subclass. Among distributions which are limits in random summation schemes, asymmetric Laplace distributions play an analogous role to that of normal distributions among distributional limits of non-random sums. Asymmetric LaPlace laws are more 'peaky' and have heavier tails than normal laws. They have stability properties and are convenient in applications, as their densities have explicit forms and estimation procedures are easily implemented. Anticipating increasing interest in this class of distributions, the authors present statistical tools which can be utilized in practice, including algorithms for simulation and estimation. They also discuss more general classes of distributions, where asymmetric Laplace distributions appear as special cases.

Description: Presents a theoretical basis for a computerized methodology for estimating biological age - a measure of time to death.

Description: This paper presents an unbiased, consistent and asymptotically efficient estimator based on importance sampling variance reduction technique in the framework of Monte Carlo simulation methods. It shows that the estimator is highly efficient in terms of number of computations. Using the Pollaczeck-Khinchine formula, the authors extend the use of the estimator to the calculation of ultimate ruin probabilities in the context of the Classical case of Risk Theory and compare their results with recent actuarial literature using the same methodology.

Description: This paper attempts to broaden the actuary's understanding of decrement rate estimation and to clear up some of the more common misconceptions which have been promoted.

Description: This is a discussion of the paper, Frequency Distribution of Mortality Costs by John M. Boermeester, which used a series of random numbers to estimate variables under study.