Description: This article is an abstract of the Deloitte whitepaper “Financial KPIs in the New World” that will be published in January 2023. It provides a market view of how the new Financial KPIs will be integrated in the insurers’ decision-making process and about the main challenges and opportunities for insurers’ management and external stakeholders in the jurisdictions that have adopted IFRS17 and in particular countries in the EMEA region.

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: In an age of accelerating transformation—technological, financial, and regulatory —reinsurance continues to be an important component of capital management strategy across the insurance industry. This is true in spite of, and sometimes because of, the evolving ecosystems of ceding companies and reinsurers. Direct writers and reinsurance carriers are coping with a number of critical challenges that are undermining growth potential and threatening profitability. Waning demand and increased capacity for traditional products have, in some instances, led companies to struggle to achieve traditional profit targets. An increase in commoditized pricing, internal expenses related to increased regulation, inefficiencies in internal infrastructure, and the sustained low interest rate environment are additional factors impacting the top and bottom lines of reinsurers and primary carriers alike. In this session we will explore these critical challenges and highlight prevailing practices that organizations are using to deal with the changing landscape.

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.

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: 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 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: 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.