Description: Examination of how mean reserve factors can best be calculated in light of the new accounting reporting requirements for the earnings of stock life insurance companies. Also examines some methods of expense amortization, including the reserve factor method, and also attempt to show an informative comparison of how reported calendar-year earnings can be expected to emerge with statutory mean reserve factors, natural mean reserve factors, and assorted expense amortization methods. Followed by several submitted discussion papers

Description: This paper, first published in 1982 in the Transactions of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 34, discusses the phenomenon of durational antiselection, a commonly observed steady and seemingly irreversible increase in loss ratios on mature blocks of individual health insurance policies. The author, William F. Bluhm, constructs a model to explain the deterioration of loss ratios over time, and to quantify the cumulative antiselection effect. This paper was awarded the 1980-82 Triennial Prize. The paper includes written discussion and the author’s review of discussion.

Description: The author, noting the inadequacy of traditional ‘rules of thumb’ used for profit objectives, demonstrates that, assuming a stock life insurance company’s objective is to maximize its current value, the profit objective can be expressed as maximizing ‘the present value of book profits per unit of limiting constraint.’ Includes discussion and author’s review of discussion. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983 Volume 35.