Description: The adoption of FAS 158 forces sponsors of post-employment health benefit plans to consider how to manage the volatility that changes in medical care inflation create in the other postemployment benefits (OPEB) liability. By choosing carefully how the nominal discount rate used for the liability is decomposed into real rates and inflation, I illustrate that the true exposure to an OPEB plan is to the spread of medical care inflation above (or below) the overall inflation rate. The implication is that an effective immunization strategy exists that can eliminate most of the volatility in the OPEB account.

Description: The article is based on a study of causes of insolvency and decisions made by management, regulators, and policyholders over the life cycle of the insolvency.

Description: Article is a detailed discussion of the Risk Management and Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (RMORSA) Model Act that was recently approved by the NAIC and is being adopted by legislatures across the country.

Description: This paper expands upon current capital analysis by introducing a practical approach that considers the objectives of all stakeholders of an insurance company in setting appropriate capital targets. In addition, the paper introduces a technique for estimating capital adequacy that is based on mapping stochastic distributions of regulatory and rating agency capital measures to observable financial rating transition matrices.

Description: This paper is Part 1 of a two-part submission. Part 2, “An Alternative Approach to Capital Allocation,” discusses using risk-replicating techniques that directly calculate the cost of capital. Such techniques can be used as a substitute for capital allocation. This paper expands upon current capital analysis by introducing a practical approach that considers the objectives of all stakeholders of an insurance company in setting appropriate capital targets.

Description: When companies engage in risk management activities, they can be seen as modifying their distributions of future outcomes. Often, this takes the form of trading off a sure cost for a decrease in some potential risk of loss. Companies may carry out these activities with several goals in mind, such as reduction in earnings volatility or preservation of capital. This paper will demonstrate a method for evaluating possible strategies by dividing the effects on costs and risks into three tranches: earnings, impact and estate. The tranches can be associated with different interests of the various stakeholders. This trifurcation analysis can help to explain the risk-reward trade-offs of different risk treatment alternatives and can aid in risk-related decisionmaking.

Description: Describes a process for identifying relevant industry experience to credibility-weight with relevant company experience to set modeling assumptions and margins.

Description: Describes a process for identifying relevant industry experience to credibility-weight with relevant company experience to set modeling assumptions and margins.

Description: Measurement of the Volatility Risk of Traditional Actuarial Risks for use in pricing and reserving

Description: This paper provides an overview of those cognitive biases most often responsible for flawed risk assessments and provides practical techniques to mitigate them. Through a combination of mathematical rigor, case study, metaphor, and logic, the author highlights systematic errors in our thinking about risk and provides ways to avoid them.