Description: Discusses how companies must ensure that significant and necessary product development, and administrative and compliance system changes, have been completed and tested in time to accommodate new requirements.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 2. This article discusses how the the choice of basis for measuring Interest Rate Spread impacts pricing and accounting for interest sensitive products.

Description: Mandatory implementation of life principle-based reserves (PBR) is just around the corner and there is no shortage of work to do, as most products have yet to be moved to PBR. Oliver Wyman recently completed its 2019 PBR survey, with more than 40 participants covering 85 percent of the individual life market, including 23 of the top 25 life writers and five reinsurers. This article will expand on the key survey findings, including implementation trends, analysis to date and recent discussions and decisions on the treatment of non-guaranteed reinsurance.

Description: This is the third and final installment of an article about using microeconomics and the concepts of embedded value to better manage and understand the profitability of direct marketing programs. The article illustrates how traditional asset share calculations are not appropriate in this case.

Description: This article discusses challenges in innovation, governance, and balancing the tension that naturally arises between them. Company culture is often a driver of success or failure in innovation. This article outlines a new dynamic to address this challenge.

Description: This article reports on a session at an underwritering meeting in which the panel included an actuary, an underwriter and a marketer. Each presented his point of view about the status of the insurance business and the difficulties of increasing production.

Description: The article discusses the continued popularity of indexed UL insurance and possible reasons why a company's actual indexed UL earnings may be below their original pricing expectations for the product. The article discusses several key items that may be the source of that underperformance (e.g., hedge ineffectiveness, policyholder behavior) and the need to monitor earnings and perform analyses to better understand those potential sources.

Description: This article describes how option pricing theory can be used in everyday financial decision making, and provides examples applicable to the insurance industry.

Description: This article is based on a workshop discussion at the October meeting of the Actuaries Club of New York on yearly price of protection and level price of protection calculation methods advocated by Dr. J. M. Belth for the purpose of comparing 2 life insurance policies.

Description: Mandatory implementation of life principle-based reserves (PBR) is just around the corner and there is no shortage of work to do, as most products have yet to be moved to PBR. Oliver Wyman recently completed its 2019 PBR survey, with more than 40 participants covering 85 percent of the individual life market, including 23 of the top 25 life writers and five reinsurers. This article will expand on the key survey findings, including implementation trends, analysis to date, model robustness and common simplifications.