Description: A summary of the activities of the Forecasting & Futurism Section, including research initiatives, participation in Delphi studies and sponsoring of seminars.

Description: Jeff Sagarin is one of the most well-known figures in the sports analytics world, with his sports ratings appearing in USA Today for over 30 years. Few may know that he started his career in the actuarial world, even passing three exams before his sports ratings took off. This article explores the parallels between the challenges of developing sports rating systems and the challenges that actuaries face every day.

Description: Examination of how mean reserve factors can best be calculated in light of the new accounting reporting requirements for the earnings of stock life insurance companies. Also examines some methods of expense amortization, including the reserve factor method, and also attempt to show an informative comparison of how reported calendar-year earnings can be expected to emerge with statutory mean reserve factors, natural mean reserve factors, and assorted expense amortization methods. Followed by several submitted discussion papers

Description: View the complete issue for the August 2014 Reinsurance News newsletter.

Description: Summary of all issue articles, with theme of recognizing limits of classical actuarial methods.

Description: Responds to questions received during the webcast with regards to modeling long term medical trends for valuation purposes. Questions cover testing the model against publicly traded companies, the calculation of growth rate in the model, the income multiplier as the population ages, model relevance to Canada, factoring in of extra disease burdens, exclusion of aging in the model, and the effect of the globalization of health care.

Description: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.

Description: The comments of DxCG about their participation in the SOA study A Comparative Analysis of Claims-Based Tools for Health Risk Assessment.

Description: This study note was written to supplement the “Credibility” chapter of Foundations of Casualty Actuarial Science as a reading for the fourth CAS/SOA examination. It presents important topics not covered in the Foundations chapter including the Bühlmann-Straub Model and nonparametric and semiparametric estimation of credibility formula parameters.

Description: An interview with Prof. Johnny Li of University of Waterloo, which touches upon the subjects of longevity, mortality projections, international collaboration and the Living to 100 Symposium. Longevity is a topic in which scientific research and collaboration successfully spans many countries, which is desirable because the implications of ever increasing life spans is of global importance.