Description: Insurance companies utilize derivatives in a variety of ways to manage and mitigate risks that are inherent in their investment or liability portfolios. They can be characterized by three main features: medium long-term duration; large volumes; and significant market risk exposure. Given the persistent low interest rate environment across the curve since the 2008 financial crisis, large companies need to hedge their liabilities, as illustrated by the significant recent increase from $786 billion as of fiscal year 2010 to $1,885 billion as of FY 2014 by insurance companies.As the Variable Annuities (VA) guarantees embedded within those liabilities hold a strong convex risk profile with respect to the underlying stock, VA carriers need to buy some convex hedge assets such as options to match the liability risk profile to improve hedge effectiveness, implying the growing cost of hedging. Such market impact of the quantity on the cost of hedging is further magnified in the recent period with the short-lived, but sharp transitions from low volatility to high volatility, when market volatility suddenly increases, even when there were no well-known fundamental catalysts. This partially stems from the growing managed volatility funds embedded within VA ($bn 400).VA carriers willing to trade a large quantity of options will see such market impact as an important dilemma, as the cost of placing one large order to close position will be far greater than the sum of infinitely small orders differed in time. In that context, managing market impact requires introducing an explicit market impact function, the influence of which the agent will try to minimize. The effect on hedge asset prices significantly depends on whether there is or not significant delta hedging activity. In case of no significant delta hedging activity, the risk appetite has a significant influence on the optimal execution strategy. If there is significant delta hedging activity, the optimal trading involve

Description: Presentation at the 41st Actuarial Research Conference held on August 10-12, 2006 in Montreal, QC. This paper considers the problem of extending regime-switching models for asset returns to the situation with multiple asset markets. The conditional tail expectation CTE is highly sensitive to the assumed dependence structure between the regime models for the different markets. A Monte Carlo simulation is used to illustrate the cost of misspecification. The authors find that the model most commonly used by practitioners is worse than all of the alternatives that they investigate.

Description: Presented at May 2005 Spring Meeting. Panelists discuss strategies for increased modeling speed as risk management, valuation and product development activities have been requiring increasingly complex financial models.

Description: The panel demonstrates a technique that can help set confidence intervals regarding future rate increases used to satisfy the NAIC rate stabilization model. Specific topics include creating a stochastic model, deciding which variables are deterministic vs. stochastic, developing probability distributions for the stochastic variables, running the model and evaluating the reasonableness of results. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 30, No. 1, Session 21

Description: Disability insurers are showing an increasing interest in benefits that tie closely to long-term care. Several insurers have developed disability products that offer additional disability benefits based on the loss of activities of daily living, while others offer options to convert disability policies into long-term care policies. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 1.

Description: Panelists discuss the challenges of managing the financial risks of guaranteed minimum death benefits [GMDBs] and guaranteed living benefits [GLBs] on variable annuity contracts. In particular, they discuss managing these risks through product design and through hedging. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 31PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. This session describes the general features of advance programs operated by various Federal Home Loan Banks, summarizes potential benefits to insurers and identifies key issues surrounding the programs.

Description: Attendees learn the most important advances in medical science and current research that may lead to additional breakthroughs. Potential effects of those advances on life insurance products and the life insurance industry are explored. Includes a presentation of neural net applications to enhance life-table methodologies. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 1, Session 16.

Description: From a session at the 2000 Valuation Actuary Symposium held in Washington DC, September 14-15, 2000 Discussion of newer and more innovative investment structures and the modeling of these securities in cash-flowing testing and asset/liabilities management analysis.

Description: This presentation is a Teaching Session, number 38TS, from the 1999 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held September 23-24 in Los Angeles. The instructors provide an introduction into how complex adaptive systems [CAS] can be applied to solve actuarial problems. They provide a general overview of CAS, including genetic algorithms, neural network, nonlinear modeling, and agent-based modeling, provide recent examples of applications to business problems, and discuss how CAS approaches can be used to address actuarial pricing and valuation issues, such as modeling customer behavior. Discussion from participants is included.

Description: From a session at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999 Panelists address a range of issues related to product development in life insurance companies.

Description: This presentation, session number 90PD, took place at the 1999 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held May 24-25 in Atlanta. The last two years witnessed a proliferation of guarantees on variable annuities and competing investment products: guaranteed living benefits and death benefits on variable annuities, as well as mutual fund death benefits and Canadian segregated funds. “To estimate costs of these benefits, companies have moved away from stochastic modeling to capital market pricing approaches. A panel of experts identify the various risks associated with these guarantees, provide an overview of the different pricing methodologies used in determining the costs, discuss whether companies are charging enough for these risks, and forecast the next wave of guarantee designs.” From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 1.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. An update on Futurism Section activities followed by an introduction to common techniques of futurism. Examples are given how actuaries can use these techniques in their day-to-day work.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. The panel examines how insurers and other financial institutions are using the internet and future possibilities are explored.

Description: Panelists discuss: [1] a way to study interest-rate risk using stochastic methods, [2] a conceptual framework needed to evaluate the suitability of an investment strategy for insurance liabilities, and [3] how one company [Capital Holding] develops investment strategies and asset/liability management policies. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 2.

Description: Panelists discuss current pension issues and ways in which the modeling process can be used to assist plan sponsors in addressing those issues. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 1.

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: Panelists discuss new methods, ideas, and approaches to products designed to provide adequate compensation to agents under new compensation arrangements and appropriate profits for insurers, while maintaining customer values. From the 1987 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 13, No. 2.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to mathematical principles applicable to pension funding under dynamic conditions of population growth, inflation, and automatic adjustment of benefits. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1976, Vol. 28.