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

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

Description: This article describes how different types of regression models used for fund modeling can affect the variable annuity's risk exposure report and attribution report.

Description: Target volatility, as an investment strategy, has been used by many funds not only as a way to smooth return but also as a way to manage risks of the VA guarantees. Contrary to existing research which favors volatility targeting over fixed allocation, this article shows that because of the existence of market jump risk, target volatility strategy does not necessarily offer an improved risk profile for VA writers. Further, target volatility coupled with leveraging can significantly increase tail risk for insurance companies.

Description: This article describes how to model variable annuities using a GPU along with some of the stumbling blocks.

Description: The purpose of this discussion is to introduce a few additional points and discuss how different assumptions will alter the results in some cases.

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: Discusses the interactions between dynamic lapses and interest rates in stochastic modeling for variable annuities.

Description: Feature article discussing hedging programs becoming a mainstay in the risk management arsenal of life insurers. It focuses on the significant stresses on variable annuity hedging programs.