Description: Discussion of solvency problems and the actuary's role in addressing them in the life insurance industry.

Description: The following commentary, after highlighting the strong linkage that currently exists between valuation reserves and nonforfeiture value requirements, discusses the origins of this relationship. It is concluded that this linkage is undesirable and should be severed. Editor’s Note: This report was prepared for use by the Committee on Non-forfeiture Values. Mr. Gardner is Vice Chairman of the Committee.

Description: The author notes “the last major change in the Valuation and Non-forfeiture Laws occurred during the 1940's when the work of the Guertin Committee resulted in the adoption by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners NAIC of the Standard Valuation and Non-forfeiture Laws. While there have been a number of amendments to these laws since their adoption, both insurance department and company actuaries have concluded that there is need for a general overhaul of these standard laws to make them more responsive to today's business and regulatory needs.” The article goes on to discuss recent developments, recommendations, and legislative action, including the work of the Society of Actuaries Special Committee on Valuation and Non-forfeiture Laws, and the NAIC Technical Task Force.

Description: This article is a detailed review and discussion of “The Report on Actuarial Principles and Practical Problems with Regard to Non-forfeiture Requirements, Society of Actuaries, January, 1976.” The author of the article notes that It is an important report which should be read by all members of the Society irrespective of their professional affiliations, and in its present form the report is primarily an exposure draft and the Committee will therefore, welcome comments as to its content and recommendations prior to the discussion of the report scheduled for the Houston and Chicago SOA meetings.

Description: Presented at October 1986 Annual Meeting. This session discussion is about the impact of the AIDS epidemic, legal challenges to risk classification practices, impact on practices resulting from these challenges and from trends in areas such as preferred risks and guaranteed issues, possible future developments in underwriting and risk classification and how they may impact product design and marketing.

Description: This is the first of two articles discussing the model laws governing minimum reserves and non-forfeiture values that the NAIC adopted in December 1980. The author, Chairman of the NAIC Technical Task Force on Valuation and Nonforfeiture Value Regulation, in this first article describes the objectives of the revision, which include updating assumptions, increasing flexibility, and improving the ability to deal with new types of products, the cooperative effort entailed, the actuary’s role and responsibilities in doing business under the new law, and the financial impact.

Description: Under non-Aristotelian logic, there are multiple values, or shades of gray. Indeed, there may even be unexpected results from logical combinations, like “both” and “neither.” This article discusses how this insight should be applied to the current debate between formula-driven reserves with limited assumption flexibility and the reserve principles approach. For reserve standards, we do need both actuarial judgment grounded in reserving principles and restrictive formula methods or safe harbors.

Description: Reflections of a Regulatory Actuary by Larry Gorski