Description: The actuarial profession is at a tipping point and a combination of disruptive technologies and external pressures are creating a unique opportunity to move from results producer to insightful adviser. For a prudent but forward-looking professional, this is exciting and scary in equal measure. The ability to process large masses of business data to make more accurate calculations has become one of the most sought-after skills for leaders across all industries, including insurance.<br><br>The presenters will introduce current data technologies used to manage, process and visualize data. They will cover solutions like Microsoft BI, Tableau, Amazon Redshift, Hadoop, Alteryx, Python, etc. and their applications in data, process improvement, automation, reporting and predictive analytics. In particular, they will explore management reporting and how it leverages data analytics to help business leaders with strategic decisions making, how to evaluate the effectiveness of management reporting structures, drivers of change and ways to improve them, and proposed steps toward entrenching this dynamic and insightful approach to management reporting in which insurance leaders can have confidence.

Description: This session will discuss strategy and tactics for becoming good stewards of consumer/customer data. Topics will include various techniques, such as anonymization, pseudonymization, tokenization, and the merging of disparate, de-identified data sources.

Description: Representing a large indexed annuity writer, the speakers will discuss the growth and evolution of the market for index annuity products. Moreover, the challenges that growth has introduced and how those challenges are being met. While much of the market consists of simple, accumulation-oriented S&P 500 based strategies with 0% return floors, a significant portion of industry sales come from more complex products with highly customized index strategies and other features, such as living benefit guarantees. Attendees will gain a broad understanding of the indexed annuity market, product and features, operational difficulties in risk management arising from product design, and how actuarial and hedge professionals are managing these issues.

Description: The NAIC has adopted revised VM-21 and AG43 for variable annuities, effective Jan. 1, 2020. The panel of presenters will provide background and an overview of the revisions, discuss detailed aspects of the new CTE Amount Standard Projection and prescribed assumptions, as well as discuss implementation considerations and the implications to hedging. In addition, the panelists will share progress on VM-23, principle-based reserves for non-variable annuities.

Description: Representing a large indexed annuity writer, the speakers will discuss the growth and evolution of the market for index annuity products. Moreover, the challenges that growth has introduced and how those challenges are being met. While much of the market consists of simple, accumulation-oriented S&P 500 based strategies with 0% return floors, a significant portion of industry sales come from more complex products with highly customized index strategies and other features, such as living benefit guarantees. Attendees will gain a broad understanding of the indexed annuity market, product and features, operational difficulties in risk management arising from product design, and how actuarial and hedge professionals are managing these issues.

Description: In this session, a company will share its experience on managing risks underlying the equity-linked insurance guarantees and what lessons were learned over these years as it adapted its strategies to suit the current market environment.

Description: An exploration of drivers, cohorts and dynamics for policyholder behavior for VA and FIA based on industry experience data, including changes in recent years and the emergence of long-term data in key areas. We will also discuss critical elements to developing a sustainable and coherent framework to translate this complex experience data into assumption models.

Description: The speakers will discuss the replication of long-term options, including a discussion of issues such as liquidity, transaction costs, slippage, impact of policyholder behavior, and machine learning algorithms to improve hedge effectiveness.

Description: The speaker will discuss the training of neural networks to compute future Greeks of liabilities (or options) without the use of nested stochastics.

Description: The proposed revisions to the variable annuity statutory framework and the FASB targeted improvement for long duration contract, motivate life insurance companies to re-evaluate their hedging strategy. Recently proposed revisions of AG 43/VM-21 and C3 Phase II, reward companies that have a clearly defined hedging strategy, if the companies can demonstrate that the valuation model and capital model can estimate real hedge performance accurately. The speakers of this session will discuss the hedging implication of the proposed AG 43/VM-21 and C3 Phase II framework. Additionally, methodology computational requirements, back-testing results under different economic scenarios and the resulting hedge credits of different hedging strategies will be compared, including explicit dynamic hedge and implicit dynamic hedge. The speakers will also touch on the impact of rebalance frequency on the performance of dynamic hedge. Case studies will be presented to provide guidance on practical implementation.

Description: As any international traveler who has tried to plug in an electronic device knows, the human race is great at devising many different ways to accomplish the same task. Predictive modeling is no different. Data scientists can choose from a wide variety of languages to prepare data, fit models, and verify results. The Rosetta Stone, which showed writing composed in three languages side by side, was instrumental in translating unfamiliar Egyptian hieroglyphics into the more common Greek language. This presentation follows a similar approach by showing the same predictive model implemented in the following languages: R, Python, Spark, MatLab, and SAS. Participants will compare and contrast each of these languages and, by doing so, build a greater understanding of those languages less familiar to them.

Description: What pain points of customer experiences those startup companies address? How did they address? How they compete with bigger insurers? Their vision of future insurance

Description: This seminar is designed to give life and annuity practitioners an in-depth view of the important topics and fundamentals of reinsurance, from the perspective of a U.S. life insurance company. Reinsurance industry experts will present on the various types of reinsurance, contract issues, financial implications and other considerations. Attendees will leave this seminar with a stronger understanding of life and annuity reinsurance, and current topics. Keep in mind this seminar is designed for participants with a moderate level of experience. Educational Objectives • Provide attendees with a stronger understanding of life and annuity reinsurance, and current topics • Give attendees an in-depth view of important topics and fundamentals of reinsurance

Description: The arrival of ASU 2018-12 (a.k.a Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts or GAAP Targeted Improvements) presents insurers with augmented financial reporting risk across all areas of the valuation process. Naturally, the internal control frameworks that serve to mitigate these risks must evolve and expand. Valuation actuaries should view this transformative event as an opportunity to take an active role in developing new and improved controls that are both effective and sustainable.

Description: The key tasks of credit risk capital project under CROSS II mainly focus onL(1 )Adjustment of measurement framework; (2) Calibration of risk factors, including both credit spread risk and credit default risk;3)Introduction of concentration risk measurement; (4) Higher requirement on look-through rule.

Description: Learn industry best practices including challenges faced by retirees, such as needing exposure to growth, most exposed to sequencing risk, and the need for smooth returns to avoid poor investor behavior caused by risk aversion. Other topics will include how to set investment objectives which consider the members’ real-world needs and how to build portfolios and implement risk management strategies to meet those objectives. The speaker will provide real-life examples/case studies.

Description: Managed strategies as underlying investments in VA/FIA products have seen spectacular growth since the financial crisis. The speakers of these sessions will share their views on the development of this market and what is expected to unfold over the next 12 months in regard to the next generation of products and fund-based strategies.

Description: Reinsurance has been available for VA Guarantees for over 20 years. During that time, the reinsurance market for VA Guarantees has undergone frequent and sometimes violent transformations. Where does the market stand today? What forms and structures of reinsurance are available? Which VA Guarantee designs and features are easier to reinsure? Is reinsurance offered on both newly issued policies as well as in force/legacy books, and which vintages are difficult to reinsure? In an age of sophisticated hedging programs, what role does a reinsurer play in helping a VA writer manage this highly volatile risk? In this session, we will hear from a reinsurer that is actively writing new VA Guarantee reinsurance treaties in the U.S. and around the world, and from a VA writer that has successfully partnered with a reinsurer to enhance its VA product offering.

Description: This session will provide an overview of the evolution of equity-based guarantees (e.g. VA, FIA, etc.) over the last few years and discuss the current lay of the land as it relates to the regulatory, issues, capital markets (e.g. Department of Labor, Dodd-Frank) environment in which these products are offered.

Description: The presentation will outline the different possibilities insurance companies have to hedge their equity risk for the various products.

Description: The speaker of this session will provide a bottom up analysis and categorization of the $200 billion of volatility control funds related investments while recapping volatility control fund trading around volatility spikes (including Aug. 2015 and June 2016). The assessment of potential market impact of the volatility control funds’ rebalancing activity will also be discussed.

Description: The speaker of this session will discuss some common difficulties one encounters when dealing with exotic equity linked derivatives. In particular, a study of a Monthly Sum Cap (MSC) will be presented. Pricing issues, along with dynamic hedging, as well as projections of MSC into the future will also be discussed. Time permitting, some aspects of historical performance will also be addressed

Description: Mr. Rallis will discuss trends in the market for risk transfer of defined benefit plans in the US. He will also address implications of increasing longevity.

Description: The objective of this presentation was to evaluate the different pricing techniques as to their effectiveness in capturing and quantifying the varied risks associated with the sale and administration of life insurance and annuity products. The results of a 2002 company survey about pricing were presented in support of this objective.

Description: This session provides an exploration of the asset side as presenters discuss appropriate investment policies for LTC and asset/liability matching. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 1, Session 116

Description: This session discusses offering disability insurance over the internet with respect to product design, marketing opportunities and technology issues. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 1, Session 25

Description: Panelists discussed the implications of the growing trend in Canada toward demutualization of mutual companies into stock companies. Topics covered include: 1. The Canadian demutualization process and some interesting differences between companies and across borders. 2. How is eligibility determined? 3. What process is being used to determine allocation of shareholder value? 4. What mechanisms are in place to protect policyholders&#39; reasonable expectations? 5. What internal and financial structural changes are driven by demutualization? 6. How financial markets assess stock value for companies operating internationally.

Description: Presenters examined the importance of good data management in the current competitive marketplace. Analysis of your data can be split into three components: 1. Are you getting the quality and timely data? 2. Are you able to process it? 3. Are you able to use the information?

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: 1998 SOA Annual Meeting, New York. Panelists discussed the activity of the newly emerging mutual holding company structure. Advantages and disadvantages of a MHC structure were addressed.

Description: 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium. The panelists discussed applying economic scenario generators in the life insurance business, a particular generator that has been developed at SS&amp;C Technology Company, a way of reducing the number of scenarios to get the maximum amount of information, and what to look for in a software vendor.

Description: 1994 SOA Meeting, San Antonio. This session was about provider network building in nonmetropolitan areas. Question addressed: 1. How can an effective delivery system be built to serve rural areas? 2. What influence will health care reform have on such systems? 3. Does a single-payer system make sense for such populations? 4. How does health care reform impact nonmetropolitan markets?

Description: 1994 SOA Spring Meeting, San Francisco. In this session the panelists led the audience through case studies that required the development of various difficult assumptions where experience is limited. The panel discussed the key issues and how they would go about developing each assumption.

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 Meeting, Quebec. This session is about capital management. Topics included: 1. Capital allocation. 2. Capital rationing. 3. Financial or product-line management issues.

Description: 1993 SOA Meeting, Quebec. This session is about how reinsurers are adapting to market changes. Topics included: 1. How reinsurers are adapting to changes driving direct writers. 2. Is gIobalization of reinsurance having a major effect? 3. In what ways has the reinsurance industry changed over the years and in what ways has it not changed?

Description: 1993 SOA Meeting, Quebec. This session was geared towards goal setting for actuaries who manage functional areas, departments, or divisions. Topics included: the reasons why goal setting and achievement are often ineffective, the key success factors in setting and achieving goals, and a proven methodology for setting and achieving goals.

Description: 1992 SOA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. The stated purpose of this session was to discuss specifically how a company can manage and improve its financial performance as measured by the statutory financial statement. Eleven strategies to improve performance were addressed.

Description: This session discussion was a primer on hybird pension plans, in particular cash balance plans and age weighted profit sharing plans. Included nondiscrimination issues, IRS issues and communication about the plans to participants.