Description: Generally accepted accounting principles 'GAAP' are those that apply to external financial reporting of publicly owned business enterprises. The principles that constitute GAAP vary between stock and mutual insurers, from product class to product class, and according to the purchase status of the business. This paper highlights additional reading materials that provide concise information regarding GAAP principals.

Description: This article summarizes the results of the first part of a U.S. Appointed Actuaries survey asking about the usefulness of the various documents that have been created to guide valuation actuaries.

Description: The Society’s Committee to Recommend a New Mortality Basis for Individual Annuity Valuation was formed in 1980 at NAIC request because the margins in the 1971 IAM Table had eroded. This article describes the development of the 1983 Table a and shows how well the 1973 Experience Table fits the underlying data.

Description: This paper discusses approaches for reporting pre-need plans in the Phillipines under the generally accepted accounting principles of the United States “U.S. GAAP. In particular, a focus is on contracts accounted for under SFAS 97 investment-oriented contracts.

Description: The financial reporting of insurance is necessarily a complicated process because of numerous and stringent regulatory requirements, the inherent difficulty in estimating both the probability and cost of long-term contingent events, product diversity, and new products, such as equity-linked annuities. This literature guide provides the user with a summary of representative sources of current general information for continuing education purposes.

Description: In this increasingly global economy, actuaries frequently find themselves in situations involving cross-border practice. This is particularly true for U.S. and Canadian actuaries. This article is about recent agreements and discussions among the U.S. actuarial organizations and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries [CIA] that clarify how the various actuarial standards apply to cross-border activities.

Description: From the Valuation Actuary Symposium Proceedings January 1986 Discussion of the development of the valuation actuary concept, various aspects of current regulation, and major features of the valuation actuary concept. Also discussion of the nature of professional liability and the specific legal liability of the valuation actuary. Finally an overview of some methods of limiting that liability.

Description: 1993 SOA Annual Meeting, New York. This session provided an update on the appointed actuary. Topics included: 1. Provided preliminary results of a 1992 cash-flow-testing survey that was sent to a number of life companies in the U.S. 2. A discussion of the position taken by one actuary who did not do cash-flow testing in forming an opinion for his company's 1992 annual statement. 3. How to deal with failed scenarios. 4. The evolution of the appointed actuary's role at MetLife. 5. How the process currently works at MetLife. 6. Insights on where MetLife sees the process going.

Description: From a session at a meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Diego, CA, June 22-23, 2000 This session presented the results of a survey of the U.S. actuarial profession conducted by the Committee on Professional Responsibility of the American Academy of Actuaries. This survey asked questions relating to the individual actuary's awareness of and familiarly with the Code of Professional Conduct, Actuarial Standards of Practice, and qualification standards, as well as understanding of the activities of the Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline.

Description: Two valuation proposals have occupied the regulatory agenda this year—the ACLI Interim Proposal and SVL II or the Principles Based Approach PBA to reserving. This article summarizes the ACLI Interim Proposal to the current Standard Valuation Law which allows a new preferred mortality table to be used and changes Actuarial Guideline 38 to allow lapse.