Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits, indexed variable annuities, etc. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approach to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications with regard to the difficulty of risk management.

Description: 2003 Valuation Actuary Symposium, San Diego, CA. This session provided an update on the current status of the actuarial guidelines on VA death and living benefits, the Academy's work on a non-formulaic, RBC standard and GAAP developments.

Description: This article provides the reader with some insights regarding tax planning under the new required methodology.

Description: 2003 Valuation Actuary Symposium, San Diego, CA. This session provided an overview of current statutory valuation issues pertaining to life and annuity products. Topics included: 1. Actuarial opinion and memorandum regulation amendments. 2. Progress on variable products reserving standards. 3. Regulation XXX mortality factors. 4. Adoption of the 2001 CSO. 5. Progress on the C-3 Phase II RBC project. 6. An update on annuity and life nonforfeiture.