Description: Most industry professionals acknowledge that funding retirement needs will almost always require disciplined savings over a period of decades. Today, we are less than 30 years from the second half of the 21st Century. However, a majority of the Millennial and Gen Z generations are either not eligible for or are not using today's tax-preferred options for funding retiree medical and Long Term Care (LTC).

Description: Exploration of sources of volatility in retiree health valuations, noting how volatility arises and might be mitigated, with discussion of valuation parameters more problematic for retiree health benefits than for pensions. Three significant influences on retiree health valuation volatility are covered-- changes in benefit level, fluctuations in cost level, and alterations in eligibility for, or duration of, benefit – and attention focused on the last two. Specific conclusions result in recommendations, which are supported by practical examples contrasting volatile measurement results with those likely from the recommended practices. Theoretical discussion includes health claim variation, health trend usage, financial economics, option pricing, discount rates, and deterministic vs. stochastic modeling.

Description: The adoption of FAS 158 forces sponsors of post-employment health benefit plans to consider how to manage the volatility that changes in medical care inflation create in the other postemployment benefits (OPEB) liability. By choosing carefully how the nominal discount rate used for the liability is decomposed into real rates and inflation, I illustrate that the true exposure to an OPEB plan is to the spread of medical care inflation above (or below) the overall inflation rate. The implication is that an effective immunization strategy exists that can eliminate most of the volatility in the OPEB account.

Description: This session is about postretirement: SFAS 106, plan design alternatives for controlling cost, funding the liability [VEBAs and Section 401[h], COLI, TOLI], retiree cost-sharing arrangements, trend considerations, controlling Medicare cost and effect of recent changes in Medicare. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 1B.

Description: This session discussion is about regulatory developments, benefit design, funding, vesting, accrual issues, employer perspectives, and public policy implications. From Record of the Society of Actuaries 1987 Vol. 13, No. 1.

Description: This session discussion is about the impact of Financial Accounting Standards Board FASB exposure draft, current regulatory environment, tax implications, techniques for estimating potential liabilities, design techniques for controlling liability. From Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 12, No. 1.

Description: This article reviews the new standard of practice, ASOP 6, and its impact on the actuarial assumptions that actuaries use for valuations of retiree group medical and life benefits.

Description: This panel will review recent developments concerning design, accounting and funding for these benefits. Releases from the FASB and any proposed legislation will be included in the discussion as well as actuarial methodology and assumptions used in valuations. From Record of the Society of Actuaries 1988 Vol. 14, No. 1.

Description: An excerpt from the 2002 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds which describes the basic methodology and assumptions used in the estimates for the intermediate assumptions. Also, projections of program costs are presented under two alternate sets of assumptions.

Description: The Medicare Modernization Act has created numerous opportunities and as many questions for insurers as well as employers that provide retiree medical coverage. This session focuses on Medicare Part D and new accounting standards. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No.2, Session 38