Description: Hear from the chairperson on themes in the June 2018 issue of Product Matters published by the Product Development Section.

Description: Read the March 2017 issue of Product Matters published by the Product Development Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: February 2016 issue of Product Matters!

Description: Read the July 2016 issue of Product Matters!

Description: Hear from the chairperson on themes in the June 2017 issue of Product Matters published by the Product Development Section.

Description: Article Description * “Agile” development is all the buzz in the IT world. You may have heard your IT teams talk about scrums, sprints, and the war room and wondered if they were playing a strange new sport. Or perhaps you are already applying agile techniques in your product development. This article will discuss what agile methodology is, pros and cons, and how you might apply it to insurance product development.

Description: Recently the interest rates have been slowly trending up from the lowest point in August 2020. The focus of this article is on current market trends for long-duration products —including life insurance, annuities, and long-term care insurance —following an extended period of low interest rates, and lessons carriers can learn from similar historical periods of rising interest rates. Innovative and flexible product features will continue to be essential, as the current interest trend may not substantially increase insurers’ portfolio rates. When designing or modifying product features, insurers should consider profitability in a wide breadth of interest rate scenarios and be particularly mindful of the impact that crediting rates and asset durations will have on earnings.

Description: This article summarizes key findings from an SOA research report conducted by Milliman on a wide range of living benefit riders with medically related triggers on life and annuity products. The SOA report includes a survey of direct writers, and interviews with many reinsurers. The article focuses on chronic illness accelerated benefit riders, long term care accelerated benefit riders, and the more comprehensive long term care linked benefit products that can pay out benefits that may be much higher than the underlying base plan values. Information on regulations governing these plans, mechanics of the products, sales, and pricing structures is included The intent is to enable the reader to appreciate the issues and opportunities related to these new, innovative designs that help address a range of consumer needs..

Description: Five Insights from the Society of Actuaries Product Development Survey on how to bring products to market.

Description: Provide high level summary of Indexed Variable Annuities.