Description: From a panel discussion session at the Spring regional meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 24-25, 1999 Panelists discuss problematic aspects of applying GAAP to insurance products, challenges in producing GAAP financials, and various ways in which mutual companies are integrating this new reporting basis into their management process. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 1.

Description: SFAS 157, Fair Value Measurements, defines fair value, establishes a framework for measuring fair value and expands disclosures. This article briefly summarizes SFAS 157 and then turns to the computation of a fair value liability and the use of risk margins, with some expanded discussion of the cost of capital method for establishing the risk margin.

Description: This panel discussion session explored alternative methods for accounting recognition of the costs of policyholder dividends. The theoretical bases, as well as the impact on anticipated earnings patterns, are discussed. Implementation issues are also discussed. Discussion of participating products in the UK and accounting methods used for them is also included.

Description: A discussion of a possible replacement of FASB Statement No. 141 SFAS 141. The exposure draft was referred to in this article as “141R.” “141R” provides guidance for application of the acquisition method, which was previously called the purchase method in the case of business combinations. The draft requires that all business combinations including the merger of mutual insurance companies be accounted for by the acquisition method.

Description: This session at the SOA 2003 Washington, DC Spring Meeting is a debate on the pros and cons of three alternative reporting methods -Embedded [Economic] Value, Fair Value and U.S. GAAP - as measures of shareholder-value creation and as pricing tools. Each speaker describes his preferred method, emphasizing the uses and advantages of the method, and critiques the other methods.

Description: Slides from a session at a meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Diego, CA, June 22-23, 2000 Panelists build on the paper by Luke N. Girard, Market Value of Insurance Liabilities: Reconciling the Actuarial Appraisal and Option-Pricing Methods, that combines, in one framework, the traditional actuarial appraisal method and option-pricing method.

Description: This presentation is a panel discussion from the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 20-23 in Toronto. In this session dealing with life insurance company federal income tax, the panelists discuss the impact of the so-called deferred acquisition cost [DAC] or proxy DAC tax created by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act [OBRA] of 1990. Topics include stock versus mutual company reactions and response, the impact on mergers and acquisitions, reinsurance, and consolidation, product changes, small company problems and opportunities, new categories of specified insurance contracts, and the impact on Canadian companies. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 17, No. 4B.

Description: This paper develops an analytical method for evaluating the utility of tax-planning activities that cause initial statutory surplus strain and expands the horizon beyond normal pricing applications to the evaluation of other activities requiring the initial investment of statutory surplus.

Description: Presented at May 2002 Spring Meeting. Discusses emerging trends worldwide in financial reporting, management, FASB and how to look at a performance management tool.