Description: This presentation is a panel discussion, session 56PD, from the 2004 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held June 14-15 in San Antonio, TX. Tail risk, long recognized as important to insurance organizations, is being evaluated in a new light, with new approaches. The panelists review various approaches for measuring tail risk and how to price for tail risk using capital-market consistent techniques. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 30, No. 2.

Description: From a session at the 2000 Valuation Actuary Symposium held in Washington DC, September 14-15, 2000 In this session the panelists discussed the issues related to the actuarial aspects associated with the demutualization process. The issues discussed included: • Developing historical and prospective assumptions • Aligning the models used in the company’s philosophy regarding dividend determination and pricing • Creating experience assumptions when less-than-perfect data exist • Determining who gets what • Complying with actuarial and accounting standards

Description: This paper is from Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1955 Volume 7, Number 17. The author notes that recent advances in calculating equipment make possible producing graduations much more elaborate than any done previously. The paper confines itself to the problem of graduating a single column of rates, such as an ultimate column, using a Whittaker-Henderson B graduation of the fourth order. The author provides a detailed description of the process with significant mathematical theory.

Description: From a session at the 2000 Valuation Actuary Symposium held in Washington DC, September 14-15, 2000 In this session, panelists discussed how they have leveraged cash-flow testing to: • Influence investment decisions • Analyze risks • Expand Cash flow testing models to meet management requirements • Provide relevant information to regulators and rating agencies Panelists discussed the enhancements required to meet these needs and provide guidance on communication of results to a nontechnical audience.

Description: A recent study sheds light on the measurement and implications of the relationship between increased morbidity and declining disability. The results were not consistent across all populations. This study of the compression of morbidity is part of a wider project called the M-project, led by the four authors, which aims to explore the demographic factors leading to an increase in the adult longevity, investigate the phenomenon called the compression of mortality and develop a new methodological approach to longevity analysis with focus on the modal age at death M.

Description: Report on the topics and speakers at the Actuarial Research Conference and Social Security Benefits, held August 31 through September 2, 1978.

Description: “Many commentators have suggested that firms need to do stress tests to examine their vulnerability to adverse situations that are not within the data set used to parameterize their risk models. We suggest the adop¬tion of a terminology to describe stress tests and also a meth¬odology that can be adopted by any risk model user to test and communicate a test of the stability of model results.”

Description: This article focuses on one fundamental modeling assumption — the choice of a benchmark rate or risk-free rate. The author looks at this bond market assumption as a case study of how one needs to monitor fundamental market changes for their impact on assumptions.

Description: This paper is from the Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1956 Volume 8, Number 20. It was presented at the 1956 Spring Meetings of the Society of Actuaries for discussion. The author presents an outline of how difficulties in the determination of a frequency distribution of the expected costs may be overcome by, in part, applying the concept of using a series of random numbers with a view of making mortality studies for each life in a group of annuitants. The paper also presents the results of some experiments which were designed to discover whether or not the concept could be conducted on an IBM 650 electronic data processing machine.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to set forth a mathematical technique which in the author's experience has proved useful in testing the tax implications of various management actions.