Description: This is a book review of The Variable Annuity, which the author recommends for a history and current status of this market. The book comments on the effect of variable annuities on stock prices.

Description: A paper demonstrating how to obviate the need for market timing strategies in variable annuity products by judicious use of product design. The paper presents the premise behind the product design, provides numerical examples, then explores possible extensions of the concept to produce more sophisticated variable annuity plans based on guarantees of investment outcomes.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits, indexed variable annuities, etc. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approach to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications with regard to the difficulty of risk management.

Description: A discussion of how the tax law changes of 2003 might affect the attractiveness of variable annuity business relative to mutual funds and direct investments in dividend paying equities.

Description: This article provides some insights in how to bring risk management into product development for VA guarantees.

Description: This article is about variable annuity products in Japan. Topics covered are the history of variable annuities, product and risk management, distribution, the regulatory environment and the market outlook.

Description: discussion of the ongoing developments in reserving and risk-based capital RBC requirements for variable annuities including stochastic scenario projections

Description: Discusses how AG 34 provides a clarification of CARVM for variable annuities with MGDB’s.

Description: Discussion of the biases understatement of risk/reserves that arise when aggregating cells in modeling Variable Annuity Minimum Guaranteed Death Benefits