Description: This session is about meeting the needs for financial information in managing an insurance company. Topics include: 1. What are management's basic needs how are they met can financial systems continue to meet the challenge? 2. Are fundamental changes ahead for GAAP reporting? 3. Is it time for mutual companies to provide more meaningful financial information? 4. Can current regulatory reporting meet the needs of the 21st century? 5. Can separate statutory and GAAP systems continue to coexist? 6. Will the United States regulatory environment reduce our global competitiveness? 7. Variance analysis - Why your predictions were wrong - Which variances are acts of God? - Which variances should be blamed on somebody? - How to deal with interest rate fluctuations 8. Market valuation, why? - What questions are being addressed with market valuation

Description: The article explores the possibility of using the emerging technology for life insurers to build a monitor system for better risk and profitability management.

Description: This paper presents a generalization of the principal current methods of financial decision making. In the way physical sciences benefit from new general theories that encompass those theories they succeed, the science of finance can benefit from the development of a general framework that encompasses many of the current methods of financial analysis. The paper develops a general framework for financial decision-making from a few simple axioms of rational economic behavior.

Description: Review of Professor Belth's book 'Life Insurance: A Consumer Handbook'.

Description: This article is a companion to “They Go Bump in the Night: Life Insurance Policies and the Law of Material Change,” an article written by John T. Adney and Craig R. Springfield (May 2012 Taxing Times Supplement) that describes the various material change rules found in the Code, highlighting the complexities insurers face in navigating through these rules when a life insurance contract is materially changed. The Adney and Springfield article also addresses the difficulties in interpreting the tax law requirements under the various effective date rules contained in the Code sections affecting life insurance contracts.

Description: In this interview Dr. Reinhardt shares his thoughts on the role he believes actuaries should take in the health care system reforms.

Description: The ORSA should be more than a compliance requirement -- its process should be an integral element of a company's governance and risk and strategic planning process used by both management and the board on a regular feedback loop basis. Similar to that used for ERM, it along with a carefully constructed set of metrics should serve as the springboard to be used to identify, control and mitigate short- and long-term risks, as well as to enable exploitation of opportunities to add shareholder and policyholder value. Risk can represent an opportunity from which insurers can leverage their knowledge and risk management capabilities to find and maintain a competitive edge. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: This article delves into a new line of statistical thinking of the author, that may be useful for product development actuaries. The key concept is how product design can produce products that diversify quickly, meaning that the company can be confident of a profitable product line, based on fewer sales than might be true for other designs.

Description: This article discusses the advantages, logistical concerns, and pricing formulas of implementing a TNHP, in which members pay less for treatment from providers who meet higher quality and cost-effectiveness standards.

Description: Panel session exploring a variety of issues connected to long-term disability reserve buyouts, including: · Advantages and risks for buyers and sellers · Use of appropriate reserving assumptions · Possible financial structures for a buyout