Description: New Zealand is about to launch its first variable annuity with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits. The product design is mindful of the lessons from the financial crisis in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to survey some new results concerning the term structure of interest rates and discuss actuarial applications. The term structure of interest rates exhibits the relationship among the yields on default free debt instruments of different maturities. Although there is a considerable volume of literature dealing with the determinants of the term structure the analysis has until recently been presented for the most part in a deterministic i.e. non- stochastic framework. This constrasts with the treatment of capital assets where equilibrium prices have been obtained under the assumption that returns on these assets are random variables.

Description: Social Security provides financial protection by annuitizing retirement. This is not enough for many. My idea creates an additional annuity via Social Security.

Description: The effects of climate change have been widely documented. Whether it’s rising temperatures, more frequent and violent storms or disruption to wild life, there is a consensus in the scientific community that these effects are real. What are the risks and opportunities that climate change brings to an investment portfolio? As society transitions to more sustainable sources of energy and tries to find more sustainable ways to consume, there will be winners and losers. In this presentation, speakers will discuss their process to identify winners in this changing world and highlight the risks to various industries.

Description: This session from the 1981 SOA Spring Meeting concerns the relationship of product design and investment philosophy in light of the high interest rate environment and increased lapsation. Topics discussed were changes in the maturity of debt instruments, how withdrawals provisions affect product pricing, allocating specific classes of assets to product lines and surplus objectives resulting from the matching of assets and liabilities. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 7, No. 3.

Description: Investment Fallacies: Future Equity Returns

Description: The article compares the return characteristics, return, volatility, and correlation, to that of other possible selections as a DC safe option. It concludes that stable value is pareto superior to all other safe option candidates, and is therefore the optimal safe option.

Description: Investment Fallacies: Gambler’s Fallacy: Probability of Reversion

Description: Investment Fallacies: Extended periods of robust macroeconomic growth are healthy for investing.

Description: Investment Fallacies: Mathematical modeling of social phenomena