Description: In this essay, we focus on the “Prospective Solvency Assessment” aspect of the NAIC’s ORSA. This places a spotlight on an insurer’s strategic decision making from a risk and capital management perspective. It requires those in senior management to describe actions they would take to address possible adverse changes in their risk and solvency position, i.e., what they would do to reduce risk, increase capital, and/or adjust the business strategy. We contend that by applying a slightly broader scope than the specific requirements of the NAIC’s ORSA, insurers can develop this into a valuable process to support risk-based decision making. In this essay, we initially consider how to determine which metrics to include in such a process and then discuss some important business requirements and practical challenges for implementing a calculation approach to support it. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: Shapiro 1990 documented some of the criteria used by actuaries when selecting the assumptions for actuarial valuations. He noted, however, that many of these criteria are often were in conflict with one another. This paper uses expected utility theory to model this process of choosing actuarial assumption when faced with potentially conflicting criteria. The three criteria considered are prudence, best estimate and conservativeness.