Description: The September 2014 Issue of the Financial Reporting Section's newsletter, The Financial Reporter

Description: This paper considers the ERM problem as an adaptation and stability problem of complex system development. The basic approach of W. Ross Ashby and its development by S. Beer are applied. The author advances the cybernetic functional feedback model as applied to the integrated ERM structural mechanism. Such formulation of the ERM problems seems promising to correctly detail and structurally integrate the various issues, including operational and financial systems linkage, key adaptation parameter of time and its different periods, optimal activity and others.

Description: Chairperson’s column discussing a few of the important initiatives of the Financial Reporting Section

Description: There appears to be many similarities between enterprise risk management techniques and the theory underlying the unified valuation system UVS. What are the challenges of each, and can the methods learn from each other? From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 2: Toronto Spring Meeting.June 20–22, 2001, Session 58PD.

Description: There is nothing like a serious financial crisis to see if your risk management process works or not. The depth and breadth of the financial crisis in 2008 identified the strengths and more importantly exposed the weaknesses of the risk management process at Lincoln Financial. Enterprise Risk Management is tasked with understanding all the key risks inside a company and preparing the company to respond to those weaknesses. Lincoln Financial was exposed to multiple stress points as a result of the financial crisis and found themselves with insufficient resources to weather the storm. Ultimately the risk management process at Lincoln Financial was not fully capable of dealing with the depth and scope of the financial stress. Without access to government support it can be argued that Lincoln would not have survived the most profound financial crisis of the modern era. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: Actuaries are trained to measure and manage risks, for example, mortality, morbidity, interest rate, and asset default risks. However, the range of risks to which companies are exposed is wider than is sometimes considered. This complex array of risks needs to be managed holistically in concert and not in isolation. The actuary is increasingly called upon to assist in this process and needs a broader perspective and more powerful toolkit. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 26, No. 3: Chicago Annual Meeting, October 15-18, 2000, Session 54PD.

Description: In the copula literature there are many bivariate distribution families but very few higher dimensional ones. Moreover, most of these are difficult to work with. Some of the bivariate families can be extended to more dimensions but in general the construction of distribution functions with more than two variables is a difficult problem. This paper introduces a construction method that is straightforward to implement and can produce multivariate distribution functions of any dimension.