Description: Enterprise risk management (ERM) needs to be seen in perspective of other management priorities and is not first in the hierarchy of corporate needs.

Description: The study of Employee Benefits has always been aided by using financial algorithms. During recent semesters, the Lotus 1-2-3 package Lotus has been introduced to students due to the explosion of its use in the business community. This paper will show how our students use Lotus to design a spreadsheet for computing minimum annual distributions from tax-sheltered plans.

Description: Companies need to learn to plan for uncertainty by taking into consideration downturns, not just an environment of moderation and occasional booms.

Description: This session explores current practices and techniques that plan sponsors use to address the risks associated with the exercise of fiduciary responsibility. Attendees gain a better understanding of some of the issues that plan sponsors face and discuss the tools that can be used to monitor and manage exposure to risks and uncertainty. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 29, No. 2: Spring Meeting, Vancouver, B.C., June 23–25, 2003, Session 108PD.

Description: This article examines the central formulas for Solvency II Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) and core life authorized control level risk-based capital (ACL RBC) and looks at their underlying assumptions.

Description: This article offers insights about the United Technologies Corporation lifetime income approach and information on the design, administration and acceptance.

Description: This paper establishes a framework to analyze the volatility of corporate profits as a result of variability in accounting for pension plans. It models a Canadian corporation that maintains a defined-benefit pension plan and that has adequate cash flow to fully fund the pension plan, should it wish. Volatility of corporate profits is important because many senior executives have some component of their compensation directly related to corporate profitability and consequently do not want any surprises with respect to actual profits compared to expected profits. The volatility management techniques considered are investment policies for the pension plan, funding the pension plan, and an alternative plan design. The analysis is timely since changes are proposed to the accounting standards to eliminate most smoothing techniques. The results suggest that, depending on the investment environment, reduced volatility may be accompanied by by enhanced return, which is a result that few would expect.

Description: This paper presents a multi-state stochastic model for analyzing continuing care retirement community CCRC populations. The model considers CCRCs with a number of independent living units and a skilled nursing facility. Residents may transfer temporarily or permanently to this facility. It is assumed that units vacated by deaths, withdrawals or permanent transfers are immediately occupied by new residents. Transfers are modeled using a time-homogeneous Markov process. The paper provides some probabilistic results and some numerical results obtained using this model. Some important generalizations of the model are also briefly discussed.

Description: A followup on predictions about the future of enterprise risk management from 2003.

Description: This paper discusses the level of reserve funds that a pension plan should maintain to protect itself from a downturn in the financial markets. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.