Description: Businesses across the board have been drastically impacted by the effects of COVID-19 over the course of 2020, and insurance was not immune. Perhaps most relevant to this industry’s current capital and liquidity concern is the prevailing low interest rate environment. This has been a global trend in the last decade, and treasury rates in much of the developed world are at or near zero. Reduced investment returns limit an insurer’s ability to achieve their desired return on equity, eliminating previously profitable strategies that depended on the leverage of life and annuity balance sheets. Focus and activity have instead shifted to other methods to counteract the low interest rate markets and accompanying capital strain. Examples include increased mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity within the insurance industry and an increasing focus by private equity firms in the insurance market for asset-intensive products, both of which reflect the goal of increasing yield rates on capital.

Description: The Federal funds rate increased by 4.25% in 2022 with further increases in 2023, which have already resulted in a liquidity crisis for a few banks. As the rapid increase of the interest rates pushed the new money rates above the yields of many life insurers’ investment portfolios, insurance companies are facing a dilemma between compressed margins from peer pressure and the concern with liquidity shortfalls and realized capital losses should mass surrenders happen. This paper discussed main emerging risks under rising interest rate environment, and several ways to mitigate these risks.

Description: Over a short span of two weeks, the financial system has observed the collapse of two mid-sized U.S. commercial banks, California-based Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) and New York-based Signature Bank, and a takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by a rival in Europe. Other banks that serve a similar demographic as SVB, such as First Republic Bank and PacWest Bancorp, have also experienced an elevated level of customer deposit withdrawals while their stock prices plummeted. The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) quickly stepped in and guaranteed all deposits from the failed banks to prevent a broader crisis in the banking system. The current turmoil in the financial system is a stark reminder of the importance of effective risk management and regulation.

Description: In session 38PD of the San Francisco Annual Meeting panelists discuss the pros and cons of the recent development of securitization in the U.K. life insurance industry, and the applicability of these issues to the North American life and health market. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 3.

Description: This presentation is an open forum, session 68OF, from the 2004 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held June 14-15 in San Antonio, TX. The panelists, investment professionals and an actuary, discuss strategies that life insurance companies use for their capital account [surplus] assets. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 30, No. 2.

Description: Quarterly update on regulatory trends of interest to financial reporting actuaries.

Description: In light of recent life insurance company insolvencies, this session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting looks at industry solvency issues. The question of whether or not there is a surplus crisis is debated.

Description: This article focuses on the motivation and trends, rather than mechanics, in Life Insurance Securitization.

Description: This research report study uses the property/liability insurance industry as a research sample to examine how risk management, financial management, and capital management are related to each another. This allows reflecting such relationships in: 1. the managerial decisions in the choice of derivative and reinsurance use. 2. the allocation of asset risks. 3. the determination of underwriting activities as well as liabiity risks. 4. the adequacy of capital levels.

Description: In this paper the author develops techniques for measuring GAAP return on total capital by line of business, where total capital includes “benchmark surplus,” the amount of statutory surplus set aside, in addition to reserves, to support in-force business. The author also shows how GAAP returns relate to the internal rate of return the actuary may have calculated to describe expected profitability on a statutory basis. Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982 Volume 34.