Description: Annual reports of the U.S. Social Security Trustees present 75-year financial projections of the system under three different deterministic sets of economic and demographic assumptions or scenarios. The extent of the divergence between these scenarios provides useful information concerning the range of possible outcomes, but, in the absence of stochastic model projections, no probability measure can be assigned to the three scenarios, apart from being described as intermediate, low-cost and high-cost. Demographic research and stochastic model forecasts of U.S. population suggest plausible hypotheses for analysis of the divergence characteristics of the actuarial solvency ratios implied by the three deterministic scenarios. Available data from the 2002 Trustees’ report are presented and various statistical measures are developed to aid in the assessment of plausible associated probability measures for the scenario projections.

Description: This article is a summary of a paper called Valuation of Final-Salary Pension Schemes by R. B. Colbran, F.I.A. submitted to the Institute of Actuaries in London last April. It includes a review of major ways in which United Kingdom and North American actuaries differ in their approaches of valuing these plans.

Description: What would we do if we could start pension funding all over? Would we have minimums, maximums, solvency-based contributions, the PBGC? What does financial economics say about how plans ought to be financed? From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 3.

Description: This session from the 1976 SOA Fall Meeting is about the comparison of social security systems in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the relationship between social security and private pension plans, and the contrast of Canadian and European governmental medical insurance programs to the continuing controversy in the United States over government health insurance.

Description: This article describes Singapore's Central Provident Fund and how it involves government, employers and employees in a cooperative partnership for mandatory savings and investment to assist with the primary lifetime goals of home ownership, medical care and retirement provision.

Description: Feature article from the January 2010 issue of In The Public Interest discussing whether or not the retirement age needs to be increased.

Description: This paper advocates a broader role for actuaries in the proactive investment strategy of a pension fund by utilizing quantitative techniques and feedback analysis.