Description: There are many factors involved with managing the financial condition of an insurance company and the factors usually fall into on of three categories: earnings management, capital management and risk management. Transfer pricing involves assigning a price for the use of funds that are transferred within the company.

Description: In this paper, chapter V of the 1987 Valuation Actuary Handbook, the authors start with a discussion of how the recent economic environment with volatile interest rates has changed the valuation and surplus management process to one more dependent on actuarial judgment. In a discussion of surplus policy, the authors identify four “layers” of surplus which have been identified by scenario testing. These surplus layers, along with policy reserves, are based on specific invested assets. The paper discusses implications for the future and notes the actuary’s ability to advise management on surplus adequacy is a basic tool of risk management.

Description: Discussion of the March 1, 2013 Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) release of PLR 201309011, which addresses the application of the section 817(h) diversification requirements to variable contracts that have invested in illiquid investment vehicles (the “Funds”).

Description: Retirees and their advisors should construct diversified portfolios of retirement income, allocating among various retirement income classes that include Social Security, annuities, and systematic withdrawals from invested assets. This essay discusses the pros and cons of various retirement income generators and the issues with constructing retirement income portfolios.

Description: Author discusses how the proposed new AOMR will affect small companies.

Description: Presents results of 2003-2012 cohorts of insurance company private placement bonds. Finds private bonds show a 15bp annual advantage relative to public bonds, due to lower loss severity.

Description: The selection of the economic capital calculation approach becomes more of a modeling decision. Now let us pause here and think about the arbitrage-free assumption at the beginning. At any time, there can be only one price on any asset. If the company considers the price calculated above as the fair price for its products, then it must hold true that the same price has to be arrived at if the company uses a real-world pricing approach instead of a risk-neutral approach. This gives us a very good basis to calibrate the appro- priate economic capital.

Description: In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the practical application of immunization theory to North American Funds. There is a lack of literature on this subject and this article is written to give a clear and concise description of the theory, and of its role in the framing of investment policy.

Description: This article notes that life insurance companies have long used sophisticated techniques for appraising capital investment, and explores the question of whether these techniques can be applied to other industries.

Description: Description of new regulatory risk disclosure for private fund advisers.