Description: From a session at the Spring meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Antonio, Texas, June 14-15, 2004 The panelists discuss the benefits of hedging variable annuity guarantees, the challenges they face and how they keep score.

Description: 2003 Valuation Actuary Symposium, San Diego, CA. This panel discussion provided an overview of the current risk-based capital RBC requirements for life insurers as well as insight into topical issues and potential changes to RBC. Discussion topics included: 1. Recap of RBC law and RBC calculation rules. 2. Modeling potential impact of alternative actions. 3. The tax impact of the factors. 4. Stochastic capital requirements for variable products. 5. The role of reinsurance and offshore solutions.

Description: Principle-based reserving requires modeling assets and liabilities across a range of scenarios to assess the sufficiency of assets when determining reserves, a major shift from the current formulaic framework. These changes will require valuation actuaries to evolve their skill set by heightening their focus on creative analysis, gaining deeper understanding of complex projections and clearly communicating drivers of reserve movements to stakeholders in order to influence strategic decision-making. The panelists will discuss the way that they see the role of the valuation actuary changing in response to the change in focus in reserving requirements. They will also discuss successful characteristics along with best practices for understanding and explaining results in the new paradigm. The audience will be given the opportunity to interact through polling and facilitated discussion of their stories, experiences and observations.