Description: Performance measurement is not the primary purpose of either GAAP or statutory accounting. This article discusses alternative methods of reporting used by life insurance companies to better measure financial performance.

Description: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is moving forward to implement a new regulatory requirement that requires U.S. insurers to perform an Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA). Before developing a response to the ORSA requirement, insurers will want to understand its genesis and the underlying rationale for it, as well as its implications. This essay provides an overview of the evolution and rationale for ORSA, as well as practical implications for insurers as they begin to design an ORSA process. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: This brief article details my observations as a senior consultant for a leading actuarial consultancy across the Middle East and South Asia regarding ORSA. It highlights key challenges, potential solutions and describes the dichotomy of management and consultant paradigm.

Description: This article highlights some of OSFI’s expectations regarding the ORSA process, and provides general feedback and observations from OSFI’s reading of 2014 ORSA reports (including KMR) and discussions with insurers.

Description: The mismatch between how interest rate impacts the value of assets and liabilities could have material negative impact to companies’ earnings and surplus. To quantify and mitigate the impact of such mismatches, companies have used matching a combination of duration and convexity. I will review these measurement techniques and their limitations.

Description: This paper demonstrates the use of Quantile Regression in the development and understanding of conditional value at risk (VaR) models for enterprise risk management.

Description: The direct and indirect effects of the pandemic have impacted many actuaries’ work since the spring of 2020. This article addresses three considerations actuaries should account for when using risk evaluation models which are focused on projecting remote, highly unlikely losses: model effectiveness, asset risk, and insurance (mortality and mortality) risk.

Description: This paper develops a conceptually rigorous formulation of the cost of capital method for estimating margins for mortality, lapse, expense and other forms of underwriting risk.

Description: This paper is Part 1 of a two-part submission. Part 2, “An Alternative Approach to Capital Allocation,” discusses using risk-replicating techniques that directly calculate the cost of capital. Such techniques can be used as a substitute for capital allocation. This paper expands upon current capital analysis by introducing a practical approach that considers the objectives of all stakeholders of an insurance company in setting appropriate capital targets.

Description: This article provides an overview of the evolution and rationale for Own Risk Solvency Assessment (ORSA), as well as practical implications for insurers as they begin to design an ORSA process.