Description: This article discusses facts and issues related to the selection of a stock’s price distribution.

Description: 2021 ImpACT Conference - Session 13B: Forecasting LDTI 10.29.21 Recording

Description: Analyze the market volatility behavior in context with historical extreme events during this webcast. There will be a focus on understanding volatility clustering and relationships, both contemporary and temporal, in addition to key economic and capital market variables. You'll also learn from a comprehensive attribution analysis, which uses economic data, asset data, retail investor data and event data as explanatory variables. Dive into investment-related Reddit comments used to capture features of retail investors and tree-based models, including Random Forests and Gradient Boosting Machines to justify changes in volatility modeling. Expect this webcast to end with an example of liability-driven investment optimization that illustrates the potential impact of increased volatility assumption, how to adopt stochastic volatility models, how to reflect volatility clustering and return jumps.

Description: This session will discuss two important dimensions of why a holistic approach is recommended over a piecemeal, nonintegrated approach for an IFRS 17 modeling solution. Attendees will receive three perspectives from actuaries working as actuarial consultants or within an insurance company or as a software developer. The first dimension is model design. The session will demonstrate holistic model design advantages with regards to model inputs, model outputs, liability portfolio management, modeling efficiency, and transparency. The second dimension represents organizational impacts resulting from the model design.

Description: Actuaries can leverage cluster modeling to reduce model runtime and cloud compute costs, which can be a real concern as companies transition from an on-premise grid to a scalable cloud solution. We consider practical considerations associated with clustering, through both US statutory and US GAAP lenses. Lastly, the results from a variable annuity liability clustering case study are presented.

Description: Driver-based forecasting is a powerful tool to predict and estimate future outcomes. In recent years, driver-based forecasting has gained significant attention as a technique for actuaries to forecast the financial performance of insurance companies. Often there can be frustration around the ability to use forecasts to manage the business. However the objective of a driver-based forecast is to break down historic and projected movement based on the key drivers which impact the results. The key is to understand what the key drivers are on forecasts and what is the relative level of impact and influence we have on the drivers. Listen in on a discussion on the core principles of driver-based forecasting, including how to identify key drivers, collect accurate data, and leverage the latest technology to generate forecasts that traditional models can't match. Explore with us the various driver-based models and how actuaries can leverage them to enhance their decision-making capabilities. Then join the conversation about the challenges actuaries face when implementing this technique and how to mitigate these problems.

Description: ALM and hedging can reap significant benefits from innovation in computation and operations research. Explore applications of static and dynamic optimization in two different ALM and hedging use cases. Insurers are increasingly moving offshore by establishing Bermuda captive reinsurers. In calculating the Bermuda Best Estimate Liability ('BEL'), reinsurers will need to segment assets to support liabilities in each treaty. A Linear Programming ('LP') problem can be formulated to tactically select assets in a way that minimizes the BEL and consequently the total asset requirement. Learn more about what US Variable Annuity Insurers face with the regulatory requirement to reflect 'future hedging strategy' in their statutory funding calculation. The traditional numerical method of finding the optimal hedging target and then allocating assets may encounter the curse of dimensionality with expanding product and economic environment complexity. A Reinforcement Learning algorithm may well fit this problem and provide insurers a solution for dynamic hedging.

Description: In the United States, there has been much industry discussion of the challenges associated with a sustained low interest rate environment, which impacts both the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet in unfavorable ways. The intent of this article is not to focus on these strategic issues. Rather, we attempt to shine a spotlight on some of the modeling challenges that practicing actuaries may experience when incorporating negative interest rates into their models.

Description: Emerging Applications of ESG Methods offers ground-up insights on cutting edge applications of economic scenario generation. The course will focus on the incorporation of climate change risk in scenario modeling and investment applications of ESGs. The following topics will be covered: Approaches to climate risk modeling. Climate risk is very different than classical financial economic risk. Radical uncertainty is amenable to scenario analysis and lack of data. Building special deterministic scenarios that go beyond NGFS requirements as well as bespoke scenarios. Holistic Approach to Climate Risk Modeling. Overview of different Climate Risk Modeling Applications. Use of ESG scenarios for Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA). Liquidity risk management.

Description: Latest development in IFRS 17 including a first look at companies disclosures and financial impacts, as well as a discussion of some of the run time issues that companies face.