Description: This study identifies large categories of conditions that long-term care insurance LTCI carriers previously might have avoided because of a lack of data. This study estimates claims, mortality, and lapse rates for several conditions. Many of the conditions are further analyzed into risk categories, some of which would be insurable at standard rates.

Description: This paper expands upon current capital analysis by introducing a practical approach that considers the objectives of all stakeholders of an insurance company in setting appropriate capital targets. In addition, the paper introduces a technique for estimating capital adequacy that is based on mapping stochastic distributions of regulatory and rating agency capital measures to observable financial rating transition matrices.

Description: The paper explores developments through 2006 in the application of market-consistent concepts to the measurement of fair values of liabilities for financial reporting purposes. A set of criteria is presented that should be useful in the evaluation of proposed fair value measurement approaches where inputs based on prices observed in an active market with reliable transaction prices are not available. Based on these criteria, one approach is examined that might serve as a basis for the fair value measurement of the liability of life insurance contracts and other financial instruments issued by insurers.

Description: The authors introduce an alternative to Tail Contribution Analysis TCA for analyzing business segments and strategies called Economic Profit Analysis EPA. They discuss EPA’s key feature, “volatility replication,” an intuitively appealing process of building investor expectations and capital market information into the risk-and-return measurements used to evaluate strategic decisions. Finally, they illustrate the benefit of using EPA in overcoming the problems of TCA and thereby providing concise reliable information for business decision making.

Description: This paper reviews state and federal regulation of investment advisers as it applies to personal actuaries and advocates action steps.

Description: The author has gathered a variety of resources, general theories, and specific practices concerning spreadsheet errors and their avoidance.

Description: The objective of this statement of principles is to articulate the current understanding of the significant principles that form the scientific framework underlying all areas of actuarial practice. The intended audience includes practicing actuaries, researchers and others, such as representatives of standard-setting organizations. This articulation is not immutable and should be revised if changes arise in our understanding of the key concepts and phenomena relevant to actuarial science, or if a better expression of the ideas is developed. This statement is the culmination of an effort that begin with the October 1991 draft by the SOA Committee on Actuarial Principles entitled “Principles of Actuarial Science. After incorporating numerous comments, that statement was published in Transactions of the Society of Actuaries XLIV, 1992.