Description: This paper proposes the use of stochastic compartment model methods for estimating both the current direct and current indirect costs of specific cancers and for forecasting future direct and indirect costs. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982, Vol. 34.

Description: This paper presents some preliminary results of an analysis of data from a regional municipality in Ontario to assess long term care risks. The data includes information on the optimal level of care at one or more points in time for each individual under study modelled using a Markov process.

Description: This paper presents an introduction to collective risk theory. In collective risk theory one seeks to investigate directly the risk enterprise as a whole. Primary interest is focused not upon the gains, losses, or claims from individual policies but upon the amount of total claims or the total gain arising from all the policies in the portfolio considered. Followed by several discussion papers submitted.

Description: This report is sponsored by the Society of Actuaries in collaboration with Ernst & Young. It examines the application of stochastic modeling techniques to non-market risks facing the life insurance industry.

Description: This research report on the effect of deflation or high inflation has six sections: 1. The first section provides background on inflation, describes some problems in measuring inflation, and explains some of its effects on an economy. 2. The second section reviews historical inflation rates. 3. The third section examines the effect of inflation or deflation on the property-liability and life insurance industries. 4. The fourth section proposes risk mitigation strategies for insurers to cope with either deflation or high inflation rates. 5. The fifth section describes a publicly available model that can be used to develop inflation/deflation projections under a regime switching format that can readily be adjusted to reflect current financial uncertainty. 6. The sixth section provides conclusions.

Description: This section contains multiple book reviews and notices concerning the actuarial profession. Reviews: 'Medical Risks: Patterns of Mortality and Survival' by Singer and Levinson, 'The Theory and Practice of Pension Funding' by Trowbridge and Farr, 'Two Stochastic Processes' by Beekman, 'Disability Income Insurance - Cost Differentials between Men and Women' by New York Insurance Department, 'Social Security and Private Pension Plans: Competitive or Complementary' by McGill, 'A New Look at Accounting for Pension Costs' by Hall and Landsittel, '1977 Annual Reports of the Board of Trustees of the Federal OASDI Trust Funds...,' 'Investigation of Sickness Statistics - Individual Policies, 1971 and 1973' by the Institute of Actuaries and the Faculty of Actuaries, 'The Graduation of Pensioners and of Annuitants Mortality Experience 1967-70' by the Institute of Actuaries and the Faculty of Actuaries, 'Pensions and Survival - the Coming Crisis of Money and Retirement' by Calvert, 'Group Benefits in a Changing Society' by Spencer, 'Experience of Disabled Work Benefits under OASDI 1965-74' by Bayo and Wilkin. Digests also included.

Description: This paper represents a brief progress report on research, being sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries, in the area of modeling of economic series. In particular, research is being undertaken to provide a foundation for the actuarial community’s modeling of a variety of economic variables, including interest rates, equity returns, inflation, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels. The specific objectives of this research are to provide a summary of the literature in the area of economic scenario modeling, identify data sources and methodologies in this area useful to the actuarial profession, and produce working software for economic modeling, including appropriate documentation, to be made available to the general actuarial community in order to allow actuaries to use and build upon this research. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.

Description: This paper introduces the symbolic valuation, a stochastic valuation which allows flexible interest rate and cash flow assumptions, and provides an illustration which values a simple SPDA product. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1992, Vol. 1.

Description: This paper focuses on two aspects of SFAS 87. The first is the availability of the discount rate, and its consequences. The second is the corridor approach to gains and losses amortization. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 2.

Description: In computing actuarial measurements, such as the moments of present value functions for insurance and annuities, the stochastic nature of the interest rate is commonly ignored. This paper treats the interest rate as a normal random variable and presents general formulas for the mean and variance of the present value function for insurance and annuities. An example demonstrating these formulas is presented. It is found that taking the force of interest to be fixed at a mean value results in slightly underestimating the actuarial present value along with the variance for both insurance and annuities.