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: Examines the trends affecting the distribution system for the industry's products, and the regulatory and tax environment in which life companies operate. Also looks briefly at the state of competition in the industry.

Description: This is the second article in a four–part series. In this article, the industry's products are examined.

Description: A jurisdiction’s regulatory regime can make some insurance products capital intensive to write. This can increase incentives for insurers to enter into risk transfer arrangements, such as reinsurance, to support their business and growth objectives.

Description: it discusses the framework and modeling of the market consistent valuation of fixed indexed annuity, against the backdrop of the convergence of accounting standards and internal risk management.

Description: This paper shows the mortality element can be partially isolated allowing an exact annuity value to be readily obtained at any interest rate. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1979, Vol.2.

Description: discussion of mathematical calculations for various forms of annuities certain

Description: Outlines a generic business model for a life insurance company and concludes with thoughts on future trends and prospects.

Description: Encourages readers to visit specified URL to read selected essays from “Life Insurance 2020 Foresight—A Call For Essays.

Description: Discusses Product Development Section activities at the upcoming SOA Annual Meeting in the fall.