Description: Institutional investors such as pension plans and insurance companies have enjoyed strong equity returns for a length of time with few historical precedents. Nearly a decade after the end of the financial crisis, strategies to provide downside protection remain expensive and the performance of traditional risk-managed funds has disappointed investors.

Description: The management of the investments of an insurance enterprise has undergone a considerable evolution since the pioneering work of Redington in the mid 20th century. Best practices have evolved to incorporate ever more complex insurance liabilities, expanding investment asset classes and global market opportunities. Strategic asset allocation (SAA), liability driven investing, and other robust optimization approaches form the core of the professional management of insurance company investments.

Description: Investment risk management has become a core competency of insurance companies, and much has been discussed on this topic. This session examines the current investment risk management practices such as product line specific hedging and macro hedging, with a focus on what still remains to be addressed—whether the tradeoff of addition risk management is worthwhile.

Description: In this session, we will explore investment solutions that aim to maintain the long-term viability of a pension plan, with considerations on hedging interest rates, credit, inflation, longevity and other risks, while accounting for the many particularities associated with underlying liabilities and their corresponding ramifications.

Description: This session from the 2005 Life Spring Meeting discusses mergers and acquisitions activity, the factors that may influence the level of M&A activity and the potential opportunities for M&A activity in the marketplace today. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 1.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Discusses 'state of the art' of international mergers and acquisitions in Asia, Latin America and other fast-growing regions.

Description: At this session of the SOA 2004 Annual Meeting, the authors of a text on mergers and acquisitions each discuss their contribution to the book, which covers all aspects of an acquisition.

Description: The session at the 2004 Valuation Actuary Symposium describes current risk mitigation techniques and their impact upon valuation systems including hedging mechanisms, regulatory relief, GAAP measurement, product 'quarantine', realistic assumption changes, maximizing returns and minimizing litigation.

Description: Panelists at this session of the SOA 2003 Washington, DC Spring Meeting discuss how changes in interest rates affect the assets and liabilities of a life insurance company and what a company can do to prepare. This session examines historical trends in interest rates and how companies have reacted to both sudden and gradual changes.

Description: This session at the SOA 2003 Washington, DC Spring Meeting addresses how to objectively measure a portfolio manager's investment performance, evaluate relevancy of market indices as performance benchmarks for insurance liabilities, and successfully benchmark performance against insurance liabilities.

Description: This session at the SOA 2003 Washington, DC Spring Meeting focuses on the issues involved in building a scenario generator. It covers the data set used to develop and calibrate the generator as well as a discussion of different approaches and their features. Implementation is addressed along with potential pitfalls.

Description: Panelists discuss the role of an investment actuary. Focus is on the process the investment actuary uses in the job, and on working with the perspectives of the investment professionals and the product actuaries with whom the investment actuary works. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 5PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Discusses basic considerations and the process of an international acquisition or merger.

Description: This session 151TS of the New Orleans Spring Meetinguses real life examples to demonstrate the more complex collateral types and structures and the risks and rewards of these financial instruments. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 3.

Description: A presentation on the principle of equivalent utility from the 2001 ARCH. Contains both the static and dynamic model as well as examples with exponential utility.

Description: This session explores where financial engineering is applied, who is “leading the charge,” and what are the current and future roles of actuaries. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 2, Session 55PD of the Toronto Spring Meeting.

Description: This session at the SOA 2001 Toronto Spring Meeting looks at liquidity risk including the causes and risk management options. The work of the American Academy of Actuaries Life Liquidity Work Group is reviewed. The requirements of New York's Circular Letters ont the subject are discussed.

Description: 2001 SOA Spring Meeting, Toronto. A wide range of tools exists in both the insurance and banking industries to measure and mitigate exposure to risk. For some risks, given their nature and volatility, real-time measurement and monitoring has become a necessity. This session focused on the risk management tools and techniques that measure and mitigate exposure associated with products that have embedded options.

Description: 1999 SOA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. This panel expanded on earlier research to examine the potential costs of long-term guarantees, transfer risk modeling techniques, and the formulation of practical strategies to manage investment accumulation products.

Description: This presentation is a panel discussion, session number 26PD, from the 1999 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held September 23-24 in Los Angeles. Noting that many of the largest and most widely publicized insurance acquisitions today are made with stock rather than cash or other considerations, the panelists discuss the advantages and challenges for both the buyer and the seller in stock acquisitions. They also discuss current GAAP guidance for purchase accounting, including a just released exposure draft from the Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB]. Discussion from participants is included.

Description: 1999 SOA Spring Meeting, Atlanta. This session addressed the risks and potential costs of long-term guarantees in some insurance products. Topics included: · Guaranteed annuity purchase rates - how close are current rates to the guarantees? · Guaranteed minimum credited rates. · Guaranteed bonus rates.

Description: 1999 SOA Regional Meeting, Atlanta. In this session on financial performance measurement in life insurance companies, the panelists discussed: 1. Value-added financial analysis. 2. Performance management using transfer pricing. 3. Investment benchmarking.

Description: This session at the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium looks at how companies can use the cash-flow testing structure for additional analysis and be more useful to the managment of the company. The concept of transfer pricing within a life company is explained.

Description: This session at the 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium looks at mergers and acquisitions in the insurance business. Recent examples and actuarial considerations in M&A transactions are discussed.

Description: This session at the SOA 1998 Maui I Spring Meeting discusses issues related to the more direct involvement of actuaries on the asset side of the balance sheet.

Description: This panel at the SOA 1998 Maui I Spring Meeting discusses issues surrounding the growing trend among insurance companies to hire outside money managers including rationale, selection criteria, performance measures and managing the outside manager.

Description: This session at the SOA 1998 Maui I Spring Meeting looks at how the insurance industry is consolidating and converging with other financial institutions from the viewpoint of Wall Street and banking. Also, panelists discuss how to analyze an insurance company and/or a product line within the company using public information.

Description: This session at the SOA 1998 Maui I Spring Meeting focuses on creating shareholder value from the standpoint of two rating agencies and a securities firm. Factors that influence shareholder value are discussed.

Description: In session 22 PD of the Montreal Spring Meeting panelists discuss a range of issues relating to equity-indexed annuities EIAs. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23. Vol 2.

Description: In session 4 PD of the Montreal Spring Meeting panelists discuss the complexities and timing issues involved in determining an earned interest rate. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23, No. 2.

Description: Presented at May 1996 Spring Meeting. The recent development of a finance track in the Fellowship syllabus allows the student to acquire expertise in financial market, asset valuation, and investment strategies. Panelists discuss actuarial work assignments undertaken by finance actuaries in life insurance companies.

Description: In this presentation Nobel-prize-winning theorems of economics and corporate finance are introduced and followed by a discussion of how the recent waves of corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions are motivated by these important and basic theorems. There is also an overview of the SOA's investment and finance education courses. Course F-580 is corporate finance for any type of corporation.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. In this teaching session on liability modeling, the panelists discussed the key aspects of identifying and gathering the data required to construct models, the model building process including objectives and considerations, and the modeling process from the standpoint of policyholder and company behaviors.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. The purpose of this session is to enhance understanding of what it means to have an adequate reserve based on cash-flow testing by taking the audience into the world of interest rate models and interest rate model generators.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. In this session on sources of earnings, the panelists discusses implementation of SOE reporting, use of SOE as a management tool, why having SOE reporting is particularly useful for international operations, and SOE reporting from a reinsurance perspective.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. In this practitioners' forum the participants discussed interest rate scenarios that are used in cash-flow testing, what projection results you look at to determine whether you have a good result or a bad result, the concept of just what is reserve adequacy, and what does it mean to say that reserves are adequate.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. A panel of actuarial regulators answered the questions: 1. What are the regulatory expectations from asset adequacy analysis? 2. When regulators review a company's opinion and memoranda, what are the things they are looking for? 3. What are the things that haven't been done as well as they like? 4. What do they feel can be improved on in the process? 5. How does the process itself work?

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Boston Meeting covers the dollars-at-risk, or value at risk, system for risk management in the banking industry and the applicability of this system in the insurance industry. It also covers a practical example of using dollars-at-risk at an insurance company. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 4b.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Boston Meeting reviews issues relating to various methods of evaluating portfolio managers. Specifically addressed will be developing benchmarks based on liability requirements, linking the benchmarks to business needs, measuring performance against the benchmark and an SPDA benchmark. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 4a.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA New York City Meeting covers an overview of the market for acquiring blocks of business, the legal, regulatory and valuation issues involved, acquiring a block through assumption reinsurance or novation, and tax and legal considerations in the acquisition process. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 2.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA New York City Meeting covers liquidity including the external view of liquidity, the internal view of liquidity and liquidity ratios and an actual liquidity stress situation. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 2.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA New York City Meeting covers surplus management strategies and addresses the topics of risk-based capital RBC, reinsurance, growth and profitability, cost of capital, and required surplus. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 2.

Description: 1995 Valuation Actuary Symposium. In this session about small company issues, the panel discussed the role of actuaries in strategic alliances, the cost of regulatory compliance, and cash-flow-testing software.

Description: 1994 SOA Spring Meeting, San Francisco. This session about fluctuation in interest rates covered: 1. The impact of increasing interest rates on liabilities. 2. Whether insurance companies are prepared for movements in interest rates. 3. The effects that rising interest rates have on the asset side of the balance sheet and some of the associated risks. 4. Investment strategy and asset-liability strategy, using the SPDA product as example.

Description: 1994 SOA Spring Meeting, San Francisco. This session explored the product design, pricing, and investment management strategies to mitigate the risk of long term minimum interest rates in a low interest rate environment.

Description: 1993 SOA Spring Meeting, Boston. This session is about trends in life company impairments and insolvencies. Topics included: 1. Recent insolvencies - are there similar situations waiting to be discovered? 2. How meaningful are current financial statements? 3. What do rating agencies say? How much confidence is there in their ratings? 4. The role of cash-flow testing, AVR/IMR, and risk-based capital formulas.

Description: 1992 SOA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. This session addressed the asset valuation reserve, the interest maintenance reserve, the RBC requirements, and the impact on the company's investment strategies of these reserves.

Description: 1992 SOA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. This session discussed the 1992 status of NAIC risked-based capital. Topics included: 1. An update of the formula and the model law. 2. The regulatory viewpoint, which addressed the need for RBC and how the model law was to be implemented. 3. The rating agency viewpoint on RBC and its use.

Description: 1992 SOA Regional Meeting, Anaheim. This panel used case studies to discuss adequacy testing, capital management, reporting solvency issues to management, single premium deferred annuity persistency, and credit risk.

Description: 1992 SOA Regional Meeting, Anaheim. In this panel discussion of the evaluation of the adequacy of capital, the speakers addressed the NAIC risk-based capital proposal, rating agency techniques, and valuation actuary views.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 Annual Meeting looks at global investing. Areas discussed include rationale for investing globally, fixed income opportunities, a model for active global investing, and other issues.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting is about modeling investments including the relationship to pricing, modeling techniques, scenario creation, and modeling of collaterized mortgage obligations [CMO].

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting is about the relationship between product design and investment policy. The focus is on a review of investment metircs, discussion of option adjusted spreads, and the use of total return from equity investments to support insurance products.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 San Francisco Spring Meeting is about measuring investment results for different lines of business and different types of assets. Accounting issues related to investment results are also discussed.

Description: This session at the SOA 1990 Hartford Spring Meeting is about the various factors to be considered in determining the interest margins for interest-sensitive life insurance, annuities and GICs, i.e. the difference in earned and credited rates including practical considerations. Valuing embedded options in assets and liabilities is also discussed.

Description: This session discussion is about collateralized mortgage obligations, its definition, characteristics, underlying assumptions, modeling of these securities for pricing and projection purposes and dynamic performance characteristics of CMO classes. From Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 15, No. 3A.

Description: This presentation at the 1989 Valuation Actuary Symposium discusses the differences in viewpoint and mind-set between the valuation actuary and the chief investment officer. How these differences played out in an exercise to determine asset strategies is reviewed.

Description: This session discussion is about the actuary should be aware of techniques that are available to compare the expected returns from many different types of investments. Understanding these techniques will assist the actuary in pricing many of today's insurance products as well as measuring their ongoing profitability. From Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 15, No. 2.

Description: Guest speaker Fred Carr [notably, of Executive Life Ins. Co.] talks about three risks in the life insurance and financial services industries: interest-rate risk, management risk, and credit-quality risk. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 3.

Description: Panelists discuss new non-traditional investments, innovative assets and investment-management techniques, and their applications. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 2.

Description: This session from the 1983 Spring Meeting is a panel discussion presented by the SOA's Futurism Section. The theme of the meeting is Competitive Strategies and in particular forecasting and the use of strategic planning for resource allocation.

Description: Discussion of the diversification activities of a number of life insurance companies. This includes the formation of, or acquisition of, property and casualty insurers, variable annuity companies, mutual fund management companies, banks, finance companies, leasing companies, real estate development companies, televisions and radio stations, newspapers, software consultants and other corporate enterprises. Discussion includes: 1. Activities really compatible with the llfe insurance product. 2. Activities otherwise compatible with corporate objectives or offering potentially large profit centers. 3. Activities which can be an excessive drain on corporate earnings and executive manpower 4. The actuary's role in these diversification activities. Then the discussion goes into a discussion of corporate planning models