Description: The Board of Governors of the Society of Actuaries unanimously approved a proposal from the Nontraditional Marketing NTM Section Council to change the name of the section to the Marketing and Distribution MAD Section. From News Direct, September 2005, Issue No. 51.

Description: Welcome to our first full year as the Marketing and Distribution (MaD) Section. As the incoming chair, I’d like to thank the section council for their ideas and energy as we expanded the scope of the section and positioned the section as the key thought leaders regarding the distribution and delivery of insurance products. From News Direct, January 2006, Issue No. 52.

Description: Runoff LTC blocks present a wide range of business risks. Outsourcing certain tasks to third parties can help mitigate these risks.

Description: To better understand the product development process and practices currently used at insurance companies, the Society of Actuaries Marketing and Distribution Section Council initiated a Product Development Survey in the summer of 2006. The goal of the survey was to identify company practices for product development by asking individuals with product implementation responsibilities about the process followed at their companies. For this survey, the “product development process” was viewed holistically – encompassing everything from how ideas are generated through to how products are monitored post-launch. Also, all aspects of the product development process were considered – marketing, actuarial, underwriting, finance, customer service, IT, legal/compliance, etc.

Description: This article explains how the use of technology and data can help a company be successful in the simplified issue life insurance market. Prescription drug profiles are a valuable new source of data for this purpose.

Description: Discusses the use of a multi-tier Scalable Cloud Actuarial Infrastructure, SCAI, to meet capacity challenges for actuarial computing.