Description: This section contains book reviews and summaries of recently published works on subjects including demography, savings in the U.S., life company state examinations, private pensions, Industrial insurance, medical care, and union welfare plans.

Description: This section presents book reviews and summarizes recent publications on subjects that include U.K. social insurance, financing of hospital care, state examinations of life companies, approximate valuation of life and health insurance, mortality forecasting, and valuing estate tax.

Description: This paper considers the question of whether or not the growth in the size of financial statements witnessed over the last several years has yielded an increase in the quality of disclosure around issues of financial risk and to what extent this disclosure is satisfying the perceived needs of readers of the financial statements, as represented by the investment analyst community. The question is addressed by presenting the results of research consisting of 1 the review and analysis of the disclosures addressing issues of financial risk contained within financial statements issued from 1999 to 2004 by 25 major insurance companies operating in the US and 2 the interviewing of 5 insurance industry analysts to understand their perceptions of what is good and bad about financial disclosure practices of life insurance companies.

Description: The multi-risk scenario generator is an output of the Smaller Insurance Company Section’s sponsored Principle- Based Reserves Simplified Methods study performed by Mark Birdsall, Steve Strommen, and Brian Hartman. The scenario generator can be used for all material assumptions in an actuary’s cash flow projection software.

Description: This report identifies the risks that can affect insurance company solvency, provides information and opinions on techniques currently available, and comments on what additional research may be necessary.

Description: Research paper presenting the potential role of Dynamic Solvency Testing, DST, in preventing the insolvency of insurance companies. This study examines major causes of failure for a small group of companies and evaluates whether and how DST would have helped.

Description: This paper reports on the findings of a working group established in 1999 by the SOA's Finance Practice Area to look at how the insurance industry measures and monitors risk through risk position reporting. Also the working group established industry standard practices in risk position reporting and reported on a number of areas for possible improvement in such reporting.

Description: The Smaller Insurance Company Section, the Committee on Life Insurance Research and the Product Development Section announce the release of a new report on the impact mortality credibility has on principle-based reserves.

Description: This survey is the second in a series focusing on the impacts to cash flow testing and aims to collect and disseminate information regarding best practices around the potential impact of current market conditions.

Description: This discussion focuses on two question: First, How are the annual statement items such as reserves, dividends, insurance in force, etc developed and organized. Second, what new or unusual methods of calculating reserves, net premiums, and expected mortality have been developed through the use of computers?